Financing establishes new data center in Ceará and expansion of cloud infrastructure in Brazil
This Monday (May 25, 2026) approved financing of R$ 300 million for . According to the bank, it is the first financing operation aimed at expanding a Brazilian cloud computing service. Read the press release (PDF – 57 kB).
The investment, according to the development bank, will be used to expand the cloud computing infrastructure in Brazil. Magalu plans to hire 170 technical professionals by 2028, bringing the workforce to 375 employees.
The resources, released via the BNDES Mais Inovação program, will be applied to expanding physical infrastructure, purchasing processors and network equipment and research and development.
The project establishes the activation of a 6th data center in Fortaleza (CE) and the reinforcement of the São Carlos (SP) unit. Magalu Cloud currently operates 5 data centers: 3 in Greater São Paulo and 2 in Fortaleza.
SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CLOUD
According to the government, financing for Magazine Luiza’s technology company seeks to reduce the vulnerability of the Brazilian market in the data storage sector. Currently, the majority of national companies – state and private – depend on foreign cloud services, subject to exchange rate variations and the legislation of other countries. An example is , a 2018 law in the United States ( – PDF – 257 kB) that allows authorities in that country to access servers from North American companies headquartered anywhere.
It would be an extreme situation, but it doesn’t matter that the big 3 (as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are called) install data centers in Brazil: even on Brazilian soil they will always be subject to the Cloud Act from the USA.
The Pix service, for example, is stored in the Amazon cloud. The same occurs for most federal government data (such as Income Tax returns) and also in the case of state governments and municipalities.
With local infrastructure and billing in reais, Magalu Cloud intends to attract customers from the public and private sectors by offering cost predictability and legal protection based on Brazilian laws. According to the president of BNDES, Aloizio Mercadante, the initiative is aligned with the National Innovation Policy and the digitalization strategy of the government of (PT).
RISING MARKET
The cloud computing market in Brazil is expanding strongly, driven above all by the growing demand for artificial intelligence solutions, according to data from BNDES. The expectation is that the sector will go from revenues of US$20 billion in 2024 to US$80 billion in 2032, with an average annual growth rate of 18.3%.
According to the company, the initiative also seeks to increase competition in a market dominated by the 3 international giants (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud). The proposal is to offer a national alternative for data processing and storage, maintaining investments and technological capacity in Brazil.
Disclaimer: Magalu’s CEO, Frederico Trajano, is of the digital newspaper Poder360.
