By Tainá Andrade*
This week’s edition of Um Grau e Meio talks to Cynthia Picolo, executive director of LAPIN (Laboratório de Políticas Públicas e Internet) about the impacts of AI and data centers in Brazil.
Picolo also coordinates working groups for Brazil’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy, for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and is a member of the federal government’s Central Data Governance Committee.
Sign up to receive our bi-weekly newsletter for free.
In an interview, she introduces the concept of techno-solutionism, which occurs when there is a euphoria around digital innovations without critical reflection on the impacts, especially on the environment. The topic raises questions, the main one being, according to the expert, the indiscriminate use without the legal backing to limit, regulate and supervise the sharing of data and the installation of artificial intelligence infrastructures (data centers) without harming the country’s sovereignty.
Cynthia Picolo, director of LAPIN, talks to Um Grau e Meio about the impact of AI on the environment (Photo: File/Reproduction)
Artificial intelligence issues are relatively new in environmental spaces. What debates are on the rise?
For the first time, the topic of data centers appeared at COP30. We’ve seen the agenda in the main multilateral discussions, but in these spaces the tone was always techno-solutionist. All the governments extolled the use of these platforms.
The most critical discussions took place in parallel, outside the central spaces. It’s still a very recent discussion and there are many layers to it.
What are these layers? Could you give some examples?
We are experiencing a scenario in which data centers and AIs have become strategic assets in the context of geopolitics. In fact, it’s an exchange. Negotiations are taking place with states that have rare earths, ores needed for the raw materials of these technologies.
How has Brazil positioned itself in the face of the advance of AIs?
There is what is being said and what is actually happening. On the one hand, there is the issue of protecting sovereignty and green data centers being discussed. On the other, the country is basically going in the opposite direction to sovereignty.
The government has created circumstances to facilitate the installation of data centers in the country, projecting that Brazil will become a global hub. But we are giving away our strategic assets for a low return for the country.
What is being done officially?
The government has created public policies for tax exemption to attract foreign investment in data centers to Brazil. This is being done through Provisional Measure 1318/2025, which has a very economic aspect, because it only looks at taxes and leaves aside the socio-environmental impacts. The text should be analyzed when parliamentary activities resume, because it is about to expire [close to the voting deadline].
Also in Congress is Bill 2338, which is a kind of Legal Framework for AI in Brazil. It lays down rules for the development, ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence, but has not yet become law. It was approved in the Senate and is currently being voted on in the House. It will probably be discussed again this year.
What is your assessment of these measures?
We released a technical note analyzing the risks in the Provisional Measure. We pointed out regulatory loopholes and suggested changes to guarantee socio-environmental justice, balanced economic development and digital sovereignty.
The government has been using a surrenderist model to get foreign companies to invest in the country. These businesses will explore a lot of territory, but the return is low.
For now, in the Provisional Measure, the only consideration for companies is to make 10% of their processing, storage and data handling capacity available to the domestic market.
In the North, Northeast and Center-West regions, companies can still reduce their counterparts by 20%. In other words, in Brazil’s most vulnerable territories, where the data center sector is looking to set up shop, precisely because of the production of renewable energy and the lack of robust legislation, the government is making it easier. In the note, we suggest excluding this provision altogether.
The bar is too low to keep these investments in the territory. When it comes to sovereignty, this is very strange. What we are seeing today are projects underway in the country with great social vulnerability.
How does this harm the environment?
For a data center to work, it operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week; it’s an infrastructure that consumes a lot of natural resources. It overloads the local power grid, especially in the surrounding community where it is installed. There is intensified mineral extraction, pollution, increased generation of electronic waste and the risk of contamination.
Water scarcity is another major impact, because the sector uses a lot of water. There is a promise that the water will be treated and returned to the environment, but questions arise about the quality of this water.
In the big projects being carried out in the country, when they involve indigenous communities or traditional peoples, there is no listening. There is also a lack of transparency about the amount of resources being used for data centers in these places.
Faced with all this, there is no reinforcement from the government for these companies to protect the environment.
Are there any official studies on the capacity of the territories to receive such investments?
No. There is a huge vacuum of rules in the data center sector. An example is happening in the country today with the installation of the TikTok data center in the Northeast[the structure in the municipality of Caucaia, in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, is expected to consume energy equivalent to that of 2.2 million Brazilians].
The environmental licensing process is totally irregular, because it was done as if it were a small project, with little impact. But it’s the largest data center in Latin America. It will consume basically all the levels of electricity that the state of Ceará itself would consume.
It’s something illegal, and the MPF (Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office) came in and carried out an expert opinion. It was confirmed that the environmental process is irregular.
So Brazil is not preparing environmental feasibility studies to bring in these projects, nor is it caring how the processes are going.
What are the consequences of encouraging the arrival of these structures without regulation?
One of them is that, without regulations for the foreign companies that operate the data centers and for the use of AI, the country loses its interference; in other words, if the data is collected by a foreign company, the country no longer has control and management over it.
Who manages the power of this data? What is done with this data? What public policies are guiding this data protection? Who accesses it? What is done with this information? Who is responsible for the chain of custody?
For the ecosystem to be more balanced, it is important to value Brazilian companies. It is well known that Brazil does not have the technical capacity to process the data or even the robust material to compete with these companies’ technology. This creates a dependency on the Global North, which is where most of these companies come from.
Perhaps one of the quid pro quos should be the exchange of knowledge by these investors for Brazilian companies.
Could the lack of speed in regulation cause damage to Brazilian economic sectors?
One of the points that is often overlooked is: who is processing and storing all the information that is put into artificial intelligence platforms? This is a central question about data protection.
Because, for example, when a farmer uses AI as a kind of consultancy, without a safeguard, and the platform recommends a solution that ends up destroying an entire field, causing damage, there’s no way of holding anyone responsible. Who will you turn to? The platform, the farmer or the AI that hallucinated?
People are very excited about technological solutions and forget to think about the medium and long term, to take a critical view. We call this techno-solutionism.
How should transparency be better applied to this innovation?
We have to question how AI was shaped to collect the information that is there. Was it made by a diverse team, for example? Because these tools were made by the logic of the Global North. We end up becoming their hostages.
Digital is a new form of colonization. Data is abstract, so it’s hard to see this colonialism. Today, there is a greater understanding of our dependence on the Global North. That’s why the sectors are trying to talk to each other, to balance things out.
*Communication Analyst at IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute)
Cover: Facade of the Export Processing Zone, in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza (CE), where Tik Tok’s data center will be installed (Photo: Ascom Casa Civil-CE/Reproduction)