Brazil is investing about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2 million) to build out its artificial intelligence infrastructure, dividing major projects between Chinese and U.S. technology suppliers as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government seeks to strengthen the country’s technological independence while maintaining ties with both global powers.
The investment places Brazil among a growing group of emerging economies seeking to develop domestic AI capacity rather than becoming entirely dependent on technology and infrastructure controlled by a handful of foreign companies.
More than half of the funding, about 1.3 billion reais, will finance a supercomputing infrastructure project in Rio de Janeiro being developed with China’s Huawei Technologies and iFlytek. The government said the infrastructure will primarily support the development of large language models for general and sector-specific applications.
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The remaining 1 billion reais will be allocated through a tender to acquire a supercomputer that Brazil expects to rank among the world’s 10 most powerful AI processing systems. The machine will be installed in Rio Grande do Norte, a northeastern state selected partly because of its energy potential.
Lula attended an announcement ceremony in the state on Thursday.
Brazilian officials expect U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to win the supercomputer tender, although the procurement process has not yet been completed. Science and Technology Minister Luciana Santos told Folha de S. Paulo last week that she expected Nvidia to supply the system.
The division of the projects is considered strategic because Brazil is effectively seeking to use Chinese technology and expertise to build part of its AI infrastructure while relying on U.S. technology for another critical component of the country’s computing capacity.
“The strategy is not to depend on a single company, technology or country,” Lula’s administration said in a statement, adding that the investments are intended to strengthen Brazil’s sovereignty over data.
That approach reflects the increasingly fragmented global technology landscape, in which access to advanced chips, computing infrastructure and AI models has become closely linked to national security and economic policy.
The strategy offers Brazil a way to avoid choosing exclusively between Washington and Beijing at a time when both powers are competing for influence over critical technologies.
China has become Brazil’s largest trading partner and has expanded its economic presence across Latin America’s largest economy. The United States remains Brazil’s biggest source of foreign direct investment, giving Washington considerable economic importance even as its share of Brazil’s trade has declined.
The balancing act has become more complicated following Washington’s decision to impose additional tariffs on Brazilian goods. Brasília has continued to pursue closer technological cooperation with China while maintaining commercial and strategic links with the United States.
The AI programme is being financed by Brazil’s National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development, with money to be released in phases.
The government expects the new supercomputer in Rio Grande do Norte to begin operating by the end of 2027. The cooperation agreement involving Huawei and iFlytek is scheduled to begin in July 2027.
Brazil is also attempting to build capabilities further down the technology stack.
The government announced a partnership with Spain based on the open-source RISC-V architecture to develop semiconductors, alongside plans to establish a Brazilian cloud-computing service through public-private partnerships.
It also plans to create a national center dedicated to algorithmic transparency and trustworthy AI. The center is expected to be operated by the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
The combination of computing infrastructure, semiconductor development, cloud services and AI governance suggests that Brasília is pursuing a broader industrial policy rather than simply purchasing access to foreign AI models.
The immediate challenge will be converting that investment into domestic technological capability. Building a powerful supercomputer does not automatically create competitive AI models or a self-sufficient technology industry. Brazil will also need researchers, engineers, software developers, high-quality datasets, and companies capable of turning computing capacity into commercially useful products.
Energy availability could give Brazil an advantage in that effort. AI data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, and the government’s decision to locate the new supercomputer in Rio Grande do Norte reflects the growing importance of energy infrastructure in determining where large-scale AI computing can be deployed.
The investment also comes with a geopolitical dimension.
Brazil is seeking to develop what Lula’s government calls strategic autonomy at a time when access to advanced AI chips is increasingly affected by U.S. export controls and the technology supply chain is becoming more politically divided. By working with both Chinese and U.S. companies, Brazil can potentially broaden its access to critical technologies while reducing exposure to restrictions imposed by either side.
The policy will face greater scrutiny as Brazil heads toward a presidential election later this year. Lula, who is seeking re-election, has repeatedly argued for greater strategic independence in Brazil’s foreign and economic policy.
His main rival, right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, has pledged closer ties with U.S. President Donald Trump if elected. That could produce a significant shift in Brazil’s technology strategy if the opposition wins, particularly as Washington and Beijing continue competing for influence over AI, semiconductors, cloud computing and digital infrastructure.
For now, however, Lula’s government is pursuing a deliberately non-aligned approach: Nvidia for part of its computing infrastructure, Huawei and iFlytek for another, RISC-V for semiconductor development and public-private partnerships for cloud services.
The objective is not to make Brazil independent of foreign technology overnight. Rather, it is to ensure that the country has enough domestic computing capacity, infrastructure and technical expertise to avoid becoming entirely dependent on any single foreign supplier as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly important to economic competitiveness and national security.