Digital infrastructure company V.tal announced this Thursday the creation of a new business unit focused on operating data processing centers, which will receive initial investments of US$1 billion.
The subsidiary, Tecto Data Centers, will be responsible for the five data centers that the group already has in Brazil and Colombia, according to Pedro Henrique Fragoso, who will lead the business.
Of the planned investment, R$550 million will be used to build a sixth large-scale data center, located in Fortaleza, Ceará. Called “Mega Lobster”, the project, with a power of 20 megawatts, will be ready by the end of 2025, according to Fragoso.
“Data centers have become very important and we wanted to give them the appropriate relevance,” said the executive.
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The data centers meet a demand from telecommunications operators and technology companies that provide cloud computing, content and streaming services in Brazil and abroad, according to the executive, who is also a partner at BTG Pactual.
V.tal was born with the purchase of Oi’s fiber optic unit in 2021. The company is currently controlled by investment funds from BTG Pactual, GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and CPP Investments, a Canadian pension fund .
V.tal has a terrestrial fiber optic network of more than 450 thousand kilometers, in addition to 26 thousand kilometers of submarine cables that connect Brazil to Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Bermuda and the United States.
According to Fragoso, all investments in Tecto are being made with V.tal’s own resources, which could in the future become a publicly traded company in Brazil.
“It’s a big company, and a strong candidate for an IPO (Initial Public Offering),” said Fragoso. “At the right time, the company will evaluate going public.”
(By Luciana Magalhães)