A 1.3 billion reais center in Rio with Huawei and iFlytek, a billion-dollar supercomputer in Rio Grande do Norte that Nvidia should equip: Brasília refuses to choose a side.
On August 20, 2026, the Brazilian government announced a commitment of about 2.3 billion reais, or nearly $444 million, in computing infrastructures dedicated to artificial intelligence. The particularity of the announcement lies less in the amount than in its deliberate distribution between Chinese and American suppliers.
The first part, with a budget of 1.3 billion reais (about $251 million), will be developed in Rio de Janeiro with Huawei and the Chinese company iFlytek. It is intended to serve as the basis for major language, generalist and sectoral models; the cooperation is scheduled to start in July 2027. The second part, worth one billion reais (about $193 million), will finance a call for tenders for a supercomputer installed in Rio Grande do Norte, a state selected in particular for its energy potential. Brasília hopes to place it among the ten most powerful AI machines in the world and expects it to be commissioned by the end of 2027; Nvidia is expected to supply the components.
This double signature is part of a search for technological autonomy: rather than aligning itself with one of the two blocks, Brazil sources from both, at the risk of complicating the operation of two infrastructures with distinct software ecosystems.
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