Actis starts Brazil AI campus with a 300MW substation

Power comes first at Terronova's new Brazilian campus. Actis, the investment firm that launched the operator late last year, announced this week that construction has begun on Campus Campinas outside São Paulo; the first phase centers on a 300MW substation scheduled to come online in December 2027, with room to expand to 1GW.

Initial construction spending will exceed $500 million (2.6 billion reais), with further capital programmed through 2029, on a site covering roughly 944,000 square meters, of which about 115,000 will hold buildings; the rest is reserved as green space or handed to the municipality along with roads and water and wastewater treatment plants. The campus will use liquid cooling with a closed-loop water system, a design that cuts water use.

Mauricio Giusti, Actis managing director and Terronova's interim CEO, called the groundbreaking a historic step for the company and for Latin America's digital infrastructure, describing the campus as built for the AI era and oriented to global hyperscale operations. The project, per Data Center Dynamics, is one of Latin America's first AI data centers.

Actis backed Terronova with $1.5 billion earmarked for the next three years, targeting campuses in Brazil, Mexico, and Chile, and is applying the same platform-building logic it used when it bought a Polish wind base to seed a 1.5GW regional platform: secure the scarce asset before building what consumes it. Terronova has reportedly secured land and power supply in strategic locations, and Campinas suggests the power is the prize: the 300MW substation is the actual asset, and the server halls are the load that justifies it.

The sequencing is a quiet argument about value. If Terronova reaches 1GW, the worth sits in the connection capacity — substation, rights, grid access — not in the concrete around it. As this publication has argued, the grid is the new land, and data center deals now price power rights before tenants. The first current flows in December 2027; the sheds will follow.