Latin America Is Building 20 Gigawatts of Data Centres. It Has 2.5 Today.

The data centre build-out stopped being a North American story some time this year. Around 540 projects are now tracked across Latin America, representing roughly USD 197 billion of announced investment and 20.1 gigawatts of potential capacity. Existing capacity across the entire region is about 2.5 gigawatts.

That gap is the whole market. Eight times more capacity has been announced than has been built, and just under 1 gigawatt of it is actually under construction. Everything else sits at the stage before concrete, which is land, power and permission.

Where the growth is concentrated

Brazil leads by a distance. The country holds around 1 gigawatt of IT capacity, roughly 300 megawatts more than the next four Latin American markets combined. Ceará state alone accounts for 32 projects and USD 12.23 billion of announced investment, with 1,300 megawatts of potential capacity. São Paulo carries more than 500 megawatts.

Behind Brazil the field is tighter than the headlines suggest. Bogotá and Cundinamarca in Colombia have 31 projects and USD 3 billion against 360 megawatts of pipeline. Querétaro in Mexico has passed 300 megawatts operational and under construction. Santiago sits at about 280 megawatts operating.

These are not large numbers by hyperscale standards. A single large campus in Northern Virginia can carry more load than Chile's entire operating base. The growth rates are real, but the starting point is low, and that shapes what the next three years actually look like.

Growth is being priced in megawatts, not hectares

The clearest signal of how the market has changed sits in land pricing.

In the United States, data centre land purchases reached about USD 6 billion in the first half of 2026, up 79 percent year on year. In Northern Virginia, entitled land without power trades at roughly USD 4 million an acre. Powered land trades at USD 6 million or more. An analysis of 80 verified transactions found that committed utility load was the strongest single predictor of price, with sites connected to 230 kilovolt or 500 kilovolt infrastructure trading at around 2.4 times the price of sites on 138 kilovolt or lower.

In lower cost markets the effect is starker. Land that might sell for USD 10,000 an acre without a viable power path can reach six figures an acre once a developer establishes a connection route and a utility relationship.

Buyers are no longer paying for ground. They are paying for electricity that arrives on a schedule.

The schedules are the problem. Heavy frame gas turbines carry a 278 week lead time. Transformers run to 162 weeks, circuit breakers to 137. Grid connection queues in Virginia stand at 54 months at best, and in Ohio at 84 months, which means a project beginning today waits until 2033. Capital is not the constraint, with hyperscaler capital expenditure set to exceed USD 750 billion this year.

Why Latin America entered the conversation

Against that backdrop the regional appeal becomes obvious. Hydro and solar resources, land that costs a fraction of established markets, and grids that are not yet carrying 200 gigawatts of committed load.

Uruguay is the clearest case, and also the clearest warning.

In October the country signed a USD 5.7 billion agreement with Spain's Solaria for 500 megawatts of data centre capacity alongside 350 megawatts of solar. The first phase is a 200 megawatt site in Canelones. Within weeks the state utility UTE put a figure on what the commitment actually requires, which is an additional USD 120 million for grid works, backup generation and wind farms that appeared nowhere in its 2025 to 2030 plan. That plan had no new thermal capacity before 2032 and no new wind before 2030. UTE now needs to bring forward works at two 500 kilovolt substations, add at least 100 megawatts of thermal backup and build up to 300 megawatts of wind.

The budget increase still requires approval from the planning and budget office. Tenders are scheduled for January 2027 and Solaria's final investment decision for May 2027. The free zone covering the first site is not yet established and depends on three executive decrees.

Paraguay is attracting similar interest on the strength of its Itaipú hydroelectric surplus.

None of this makes the growth less real. It does mean the binding question in every one of these markets is the same one being asked in Virginia and Ohio, which is how quickly a megawatt can actually be delivered.

What it means for anyone holding land

For landowners in these markets, the value of a site now depends far more on its electrical position than on its physical attributes. A parcel with a documented connection route, a utility letter and a credible energisation date within roughly 18 months is a different asset entirely from an identical parcel without one.

For buyers, the diligence has shifted accordingly. Zoning and title remain necessary but no longer decide anything. What decides is whether the capacity is allocated, whether the allocation is documented, and whether the substation serving it exists or is merely planned.

What we are seeing in the market

Canelones illustrates the point better than any forecast. The department already hosts Google's campus, a build in the order of USD 850 million, alongside the national operator's facility. Solaria's first phase sits in the same department. Within a few years a single Uruguayan department has gone from agricultural land to the centre of the country's compute infrastructure, and the land around it has repriced accordingly.

Westcourt currently holds off market industrial and development land in both Uruguay and Paraguay, including free zone land in Canelones within minutes of the existing campuses, metropolitan industrial sites around Asunción, and holdings in the Central department. The Paraguayan sites draw on surplus hydroelectric generation from Itaipú and Yacyretá, which delivers among the lowest firm renewable power costs available anywhere.

Across all of them the same question governs value, which is the power position. We treat grid capacity, free zone resolution and permit status as items for verification rather than claims to be repeated, and we will say so plainly where a position is pending rather than in force.

All sites are strictly off market. A non circumvention and non disclosure agreement is required before any site is identified, and a letter of intent and proof of funds before discussions with ownership.

Frequently asked questions

Current as at 4 November 2026. Data centre pipelines, grid connection timelines and announced investment figures change rapidly, and the figures cited are those published at the time of writing. Announced capacity is not committed capacity. Nothing here constitutes investment, financial, legal or tax advice. Independent professional advice should be obtained before acting.