© Nathan Howard for The New York Times
In its heyday, Route 66 was a road of opportunities and dreams. Today, it’s a highway of ghosts, a symbol of what once was, although it still attracts visitors. For Current Affairs, Jesse Wright reflects on America’s historic highway in a time of artificial intelligence, when so much land across the country is being bought up, repurposed, and turned into data centers. Wright, who traveled the road from Chicago to Santa Monica, asks: What will these massive centers leave behind?
But what is new, perhaps, is the utter absence of even having been at all. The data centers’ legacy will be nothing. Their absence will be complete. Computer hallucinations leave no room for the dreams of humans. In 100 years, there will be nothing. Nobody will want to spend their vacation touring endless rooms full of rusty server racks.
O Grupo coordenado pela Anatel (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações), GAISPI, aprovou propostas da EAF (Entidade Administradora da Faixa) que somam R$ 1,66 bilhão em investimentos para novas políticas públicas, como a TV 3.0, na última terça-feira (27).
Entre os projetos estão a distribuição de conversores de TV 3.0 para famílias de baixa renda e implantação de um data center voltado ao processamento de dados e aplicação de IA (inteligência artificial) para o governo federal.
Do total, o investimento de R$ 1,28 bilhão atenderia aproximadamente 910 mil famílias de São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro e Distrito Federal, com prioridade para beneficiários do Bolsa Família inscritos no CadÚnico (Cadastro Único).
De acordo com estudo da EAF, o custo médio estimado seria de R$ 1.407,36 por família.
A implementação dos equipamentos, logística, distribuição, comunicação, atendimento à população, tecnologia e demais operações está prevista para ocorrer em até 24 meses, iniciando na cidade de São Paulo.
Já o restante, R$ 375 milhões, serão destinados ao data center de alta capacidade. O projeto prevê uma infraestrutura pública de processamento de dados, com titularidade da União e operação pela Telebras, destinada a atender órgãos e instituições federais.
A EAF ficará responsável pela implantação do estabelecimento de aproximadamente 5 mil metros quadrados, com dois módulos de infraestrutura.
O primeiro será dedicado a aplicações de inteligência artificial, com 20 racks, seis servidores equipados com um total de 48 unidades de processamento gráfico (GPUs), além de servidores e sistemas de armazenamento de alta capacidade.
O segundo módulo será destinado a serviços tradicionais de tecnologia da informação e colocalização de equipamentos. O prazo estimado de implantação é de 12 meses.
As iniciativas poderão ser financiadas com recursos remanescentes do leilão do 5G, resultado das economias obtidas na execução dos compromissos previstos no edital. As propostas seguem agora para análise e deliberação do Conselho Diretor da Anatel.
Os estudos apresentados pela EAF identificaram uma disponibilidade estimada de R$ 1,69 bilhão para projetos adicionais, após a reserva de aproximadamente R$ 2 bilhões para assegurar a conclusão das obrigações originais do edital do 5G, incluindo uma margem de segurança de 10%.
Para o conselheiro da Anatel e presidente do GAISPI, Edson Holanda, a otimização dos recursos “abrem a possibilidade de ampliar os benefícios para a sociedade, com novas políticas públicas, sem comprometer as obrigações originalmente previstas”, afirmou.
A EAF seguirá como responsável pelos detalhamentos das propostas, conforme as diretrizes do GAISPI e Anatel.
Cerveja, frutas e TVs: o que deve ficar mais caro nos EUA após tarifas
In early June, a trailer carrying roughly $13 million worth of computer server equipment set out across the Mojave Desert toward Fayetteville, Georgia, with an unmarked sedan trailing behind it, carrying two off-duty law enforcement officers hired to watch over the load. The truck was headed towards a sophisticated theft, part of a $100 million crime wave targeting tech gear headed for AI data centers.
The post Crooks Target AI Data Center Equipment Shipments in $100 Million Crime Wave appeared first on Breitbart.
Portugal está a reforçar a sua posição como mercado emergente de Data Centers na Europa, impulsionado pelo crescimento da procura associada à inteligência artificial (IA), pela forte conectividade internacional e pela expansão de projetos de grande escala. De acordo com o mais recente Data Centers Iberian Region Snapshot, elaborado pela Colliers, empresa global e diversificada de serviços profissionais e de gestão de investimentos, especializada em Imobiliário Comercial, Engenharia e Gestão de Investimento, Lisboa dispõe atualmente de 25 MW IT de capacidade operacional, mas apresenta um pipeline de desenvolvimento de aproximadamente 1.389 MW IT. Cerca de 91% da capacidade assegurada deverá estar operacional antes de 2030.
Apesar de não terem sido identificados novos projetos ou aumentos de capacidade operacional em Lisboa durante o período analisado (abril a setembro de 2026), o mercado mantém uma dinâmica de desenvolvimento significativa. A Colliers destaca que a combinação entre uma base operacional ainda reduzida e um pipeline de grande dimensão coloca Portugal numa posição forte para captar uma nova vaga de procura por infraestrutura digital.
“O mercado de centros de dados em Portugal ainda é pequeno quando comparado com o de outros países com maior tradição neste setor (FLAP-D). No entanto, apesar de contar com menos projetos, Portugal tem três projetos que já são, ou virão a ser, muito relevantes em termos de dimensão: o Start Campus, em Sines, o Merlin, em Lisboa, e o Covilhã DC (Asterion). Em conjunto, estes projetos representam um pipeline de desenvolvimento muito significativo”, diz José María Guilleuma, managing director de Data Centers da Colliers, ao Jornal Económico.
“Portugal já conseguiu atrair grandes projetos de Inteligência Artificial, mas falta-lhe transformar Lisboa numa localização atrativa para os grandes operadores de hiperescala, à semelhança do que acontece em Barcelona”, acrescenta o responsável.
A crescente relevância da inteligência artificial está a alterar os requisitos dos operadores e utilizadores de Data Centers, aumentando a necessidade de capacidade energética, conectividade e instalações preparadas para cargas computacionais de elevada densidade. Neste contexto, a construção do Lisbon AI Campus da Merlin Edged está em curso. A primeira fase prevê 80 MW IT, distribuídos por duas instalações de 40 MW, com entrega prevista para o quarto trimestre de 2027. Está ainda prevista uma capacidade adicional de 100 MW IT em três edifícios, elevando a capacidade planeada do campus para 180 MW IT. Para além desta capacidade, a Merlin Edged prevê desenvolver até mais 1.120 MW IT no seu pipeline futuro, incluindo 200 MW IT em Vila Franca de Xira e outros 920 MW IT numa localização ainda não divulgada.
Sines ganha importância estratégica na corrida à IA
Fora da região de Lisboa, o projeto de Sines assume uma relevância crescente na estratégia nacional de infraestrutura digital. Segundo a Colliers, a Start Campus, em parceria com a Nscale e a Microsoft, ampliou o seu projeto para implementar mais de 66.000 GPUs NVIDIA Rubin a partir do final de 2027, complementando as mais de 12.600 GPUs NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra previstas para o SIN01. A Start Campus mantém autorização para uma capacidade total de 1,2 GW, reforçando Sines como uma das localizações europeias com maior potencial para infraestrutura de IA de grande escala.
Também fora de Lisboa, a entrada da NxN no mercado português, através da aquisição de um Data Center operacional de 1 MW IT em Évora, evidencia a expansão gradual do mercado para outros pontos do território. A atratividade de Lisboa enquanto localização para Data Centers é suportada pela sua forte conectividade internacional, nomeadamente pela rede de cabos submarinos e pela infraestrutura de fibra ótica. O mercado beneficia ainda de um enquadramento regulatório considerado favorável e de uma crescente valorização das infraestruturas digitais como setor estratégico.
“Portugal é uma geografia ideal, graças à sua localização estratégica voltada para o Atlântico. É verdade que o novo enquadramento regulatório em Espanha poderá beneficiar Portugal, ao posicioná-lo como uma boa alternativa para a diversificação europeia dos países nórdicos. No entanto, Portugal já beneficia de previsibilidade regulatória, e o seu modelo e estrutura da rede elétrica estão alinhados com as orientações da União Europeia”, conclui José María Guilleuma.
Gargalos na infraestrutura elétrica, principalmente na transmissão, levaram a CPFL Energia a negar pedidos de conexão de data centers que somam cerca de 8 gigawatts (GW), afirmou o CEO da companhia, Gustavo Estrella, durante a 17ª edição do Brazil Windpower, em São Paulo. Segundo o executivo, o volume equivale a oito vezes a demanda dos centros de dados atualmente em operação no Brasil.
Estrella reconheceu, porém, que uma parte das solicitações tem caráter especulativo, mas ajuda a dimensionar a procura por conexão à rede e a preocupação do setor diante da perda de oportunidades.
“Eu neguei cerca de 8 GW de capacidade de conexão de data centers por dificuldade de conexão”, afirmou o executivo.
Segundo Estrella, o Brasil levou aproximadamente 16 anos para desenvolver uma demanda de cerca de 1 GW nesse mercado. A escala dos novos pedidos pressiona uma infraestrutura cuja expansão exige prazos superiores aos que os investidores em centros de dados estão dispostos a esperar.
Ele apontou dois obstáculos ao desenvolvimento dessa indústria: a carga tributária e a conexão ao sistema elétrico. Embora existam limitações nas redes de distribuição, afirmou que o principal gargalo está na transmissão, responsável por transportar grandes blocos de energia até os centros de consumo.
A localização dos empreendimentos acrescenta uma dificuldade. Segundo ele, os data centers precisam estar onde sua instalação faça sentido econômico, o que exige compatibilizar a disponibilidade da rede com as necessidades dos projetos. A existência de oferta de energia no país, assim, precisa ser acompanhada de capacidade para entregá-la nos locais escolhidos pelos investidores.
De acordo com Estrella, as áreas de concessão da CPFL concentram cerca de 70% do consumo de eletricidade dos data centers brasileiros.
Para ilustrar a dimensão das novas cargas, o executivo citou uma demanda de aproximadamente 350 megawatts (MW) para Campinas. Dois empreendimentos de 200 MW cada — porte que, segundo ele, já não é raro nesse mercado — somariam 400 MW, superando a referência apresentada para a cidade.
O problema também envolve o calendário das obras. Estrella citou um prazo médio de sete anos para desenvolver a infraestrutura necessária e avaliou que a indústria de data centers não esperará todo esse tempo para colocar seus projetos em operação.
A perspectiva é que a demanda aumente ainda mais. Segundo Estrella, o consumo de data centers será de 40% em 2026. Para 2027 será de 100%, mas em uma velocidade menor do que poderia acontecer.
Além de cobrar maior velocidade, o executivo defendeu que os interessados em instalar os centros de dados participem do financiamento da infraestrutura construída para atendê-los. Na avaliação dele, essa demanda precisa assumir parte do esforço financeiro para viabilizar sua conexão.
A presença de solicitações especulativas, reconhecida pelo próprio executivo, torna relevante distinguir intenções de investimento de projetos com perspectiva concreta de implantação antes de dimensionar as obras. A Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (EPE) ressalta que a concretização dos empreendimentos depende de fatores como infraestrutura elétrica e de telecomunicações, viabilidade econômica e atendimento às exigências de garantias para conexão.
O planejamento do acesso à transmissão passa por mudanças. As chamadas Temporadas de Acesso defionidas no Pnast ((Política Nacional de Acesso ao Sistema de Transmissão) organizam a apresentação e a análise dos pedidos à Rede Básica, com processos competitivos quando há disputa pela capacidade disponível.
Leo Kim’s piece is an ambitious mix of race‑track reportage, personal reflection, and theory‑driven critique. It braids together one night at a small Indiana speedway, the rise and collapse of Anderson’s auto industry and unions, and an abstract meditation on tech, AI, and “speed.” It poses a compelling central question—whether every technology invents its own kind of disaster—but does demand close attention to follow its dense imagery.
The dust doesn’t bother me much. By this point in the night, the round-and-round whirling of cars, combined with the alchemical mixture of exhaust, burnt rubber, and patriotic beer, has lulled me into a Midwestern trance. It must be the flatness that makes this region such a perfect catalyst for this kind of delirium. When Baudrillard drove through the expanse of the US, he wrote about speed as an erasing force whose “only rule is to leave no trace behind.” He was right to sense speed as a primal impulse in this unfurling stretch of country. Movement in the Old World is slowed by its narrow roads, latticed cities, and contested borders; it struggles to overcome the glacial pace of History. Drive a hundred miles and you’re bound to run into something. Not so in the Midwest. Nothing here interrupts the flow. There are no mountains to break the wind, no densities of skyscrapers to bisect the sky, no ravines to stop the sprawl. Everything moves towards terminal velocity. It is a landscape built for vortices and accelerating feedback loops: for flows of capital, weather, ideology, and machinery to intersect and (r)evolve into novel forms.
Texas might finally turn blue, and the man poised to do it is a mask-wearing, trans rights–supporting, Gnostic Gospel–quoting liberal from Austin. In an already tough year for Republicans, voter dissatisfaction at the state's data center boom is giving the Democrat an edge.
A few weeks out from the 2026 midterm elections, the polls have been giving state Rep. James Talarico (D–Austin) a small, steady edge over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race to fill the Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Texas has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994. The chattering class's constantly misfiring prediction that the latest liberal challenger will beat the favored Republican has made "Texas turning blue" a mockable meme—the political equivalent of Charlie Brown winding up to kick the football.
But this year may be different. The national environment is very bad for Republicans. President Donald Trump's unpopular tariffs and unpopular war have made him, well, unpopular and given GOP candidates little to run on. Texas Republicans are also saddled with Paxton, who won a hotly contested primary despite having little natural charisma and a lot of scandals (both personal and political) to explain away.
Republicans' political headwinds have made Talarico, a 37-year-old legislator with a history that puts him solidly to the left of the median Texas voter, a surprisingly competitive candidate. Some of Talarico's edge can no doubt be chalked up to the candidate's own political skill and fundraising advantage. But he is also benefiting from a late-breaking development that few saw coming: the Lone Star's data center revolt.
For as long as Republicans have run Texas, they've been able to claim credit for the state's decades-long economic growth streak. But the grassroots groundswell of opposition to Texas' data center boom has helped to neutralize that traditional GOP advantage. In solidly red rural areas, large majorities are telling pollsters that they are opposed to the hundreds of data centers proposed in their backyard.
When Republicans thus talk about their economic stewardship today, it conjures up not positive feelings of persistent prosperity but dissatisfaction at all the ways the party has allowed an unpopular data center to be built next door. In a tight race, that might just be enough to give Talarico the last little push he needs to finally turn Texas blue.
All the Texas Senate races of the past couple of decades have taken place within a growth machine. From 1998 through 2024, the Lone Star state posted the fourth-highest GDP growth rate, a period that roughly matches the GOP's unbroken record of statewide election wins. Not a day goes by, it seems, without a major corporation announcing a Texas megaproject or a billionaire relocating to booming Austin.
The state's frenetic growth rate has given the Texas GOP a good story to tell voters about why they should continue Republican rule: Under their low-tax, low-regulation regime, Texas has prospered. The jobs and businesses flooding into the state tend to be coming from states ruled by the Democrats trying to unseat them.
Those Texas Democrats whose bids for statewide office have managed to electrify liberals, meanwhile, have been ill-suited to convince voters that they'll keep the "Texas Miracle" going. There's an old joke that "Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love." In Texas, this hopeless romanticism has led to repeated heartbreak. In 2014, Wendy Davis inspired a national media buzz with her pro-abortion messaging while running for governor against Greg Abbott. Beto O'Rourke's style-over-substance challenge to Ted Cruz in 2018 produced a similar mania. Both lost.
You might expect Talarico to meet a similar fate. The fresh-faced lawmaker seems almost grown in a lab to leave liberals giddy while making swing voters stick with the GOP. A former teacher, he first won elected office in 2018, when he flipped an open Texas House seat in the Austin suburbs from red to blue. At 29 years old, he was then the youngest member of the Texas Legislature.
Analyses of lawmakers' voting record put Talarico squarely in the ideological middle of his fellow Democrats, and well to the left of the state's political center. His national star began to rise among Democrats when he used religious arguments to challenge Texas Republicans' culture-war battles over education.
In 2021, Texas Republicans proposed a bill requiring K-12 athletes to play on girls' or boys' sports teams according to the sex listed on their birth certificates. Two years later, they introduced a measure that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, cited his liberal brand of Protestantism to oppose both bills. "Trans children are God's children, made in God's own image. There's nothing wrong with them. Nothing at all. They are perfect. They are beautiful, and they are sacred," he said in a floor speech opposing the sports bill. In a debate on the Ten Commandments bill, he declared the legislation "deeply un-Christian," citing Christ's instructions in the Gospel of Matthew to pray privately. (The sports bill eventually passed. The 2023 Ten Commandments bill failed, but a near-identical bill would pass in 2025.)
Conservative Christians would quibble with Talarico's progressive readings of the Bible. For national Democrats and liberal-leaning magazine writers, however, his penchant for reframing the Annunciation as a pro-abortion parable and his citations of the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas to support trans rights all served as proof that this "deeply religious" Democrat could effectively speak to Christian swing voters in their own terms.
Talarico has also taken many secular positions that might be hard sells in Texas. In May 2020, a couple of months into the COVID-19 pandemic and weeks before George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, Talarico declared that racism was the real virus. At a 2022 animal welfare fundraiser, a mask-wearing Talarico said he was running a vegan campaign. The same year, he said in a public hearing, again wearing a mask, that "fossil fuels are destroying the planet."
In a state where oil, gas, and beef are champion industries, swing voters to not swoon ordinarily for race-critical, carbon-neutral veganism. Talarico himself seems to have conceded that point. He's dispelled rumors of his veganism by eating barbecue on camera and waved away his past wokisms as "cringey" and "miss[ing] the mark." Even so, Talarico's campaign platform remains stridently progressive. He wants to tax billionaires and raise the minimum wage. If it were up to him, he'd open up Medicare to everyone, regardless of age, and would codify abortion protections into law. He's pro–marijuana legalization and fanatically anti–school choice.
So why are polls showing Talarico maintaining a consistent two- to six-point edge over Paxton?
In one sense, his continued leftward lean is an electoral boon. In a race with a clear enthusiasm gap, some 91 percent of Democrats say they'll be supporting Talarico in the general election. Only 79 percent of Republicans say the same about their candidate. Talarico has also been blessed with a national environment that's shaping up to be a bloodbath for Republicans, who have to answer for the rising prices driven by Trump's tariffs and the Iran war.
But there is one final factor putting Talarico over the edge: a statewide data center revolt that's souring Texas voters on their state's growth machine and neutralizing the pro-growth message that has carried the GOP through so many other tough election cycles.
In November 2025, on the heels of Google's decision to invest $40 billion in data center development in the state, Gov. Greg Abbott proudly declared, "Texas is the epicenter of AI development, where companies can pair innovation with expanding energy." Just a few months later, the governor was vowing to impose new regulations on data centers to "protect" Texans from the consequences of their rampant development.
The U.S. has experienced a rapid revolt against data centers this year, and in few places has that backlash been more sudden or more pronounced than in Texas. According to a 2025 poll by the University of Texas at Austin, nearly 60 percent of Texans were either supportive or neutral about a data center being built in their neighborhood. In August 2026, 57 percent said they would oppose a local data center project.
This backlash against data centers couldn't have come at a worse time for Texas Republicans, or, consequently, at a better time for Talarico. The policies the Texas GOP have long touted as the key to the state's economic success—loose land use and environmental regulations, no state income tax, and the cheap commercial energy prices created by its deregulated energy sector—are the same policies attracting data centers. When the most visible recent consequence of those pro-growth policies is a data center boom most Texans hate, the state's Republicans are having to run away from what were once their prime selling points.
The sudden negative turn in public opinion on data centers has "proven a catalyst for people raising questions about governance and the economy in the state," says James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Making matters worse, says Henson, is the geography of the data center backlash. Opposition to these projects is concentrated in rural areas that have long been Republican strongholds and in suburban areas where the party needs to stay competitive to win statewide elections.
As Abbott's pivot demonstrates, Texas Republicans feel acutely vulnerable on this issue and are scrambling to adopt policies that ensure these developments do not lead to higher electricity prices for residential consumers. Paxton himself has called for a raft of new regulations on these facilities' water and power use and for ending a sales tax exemption on data centers, as well as some more off-the-wall conservative-coded policies, such as holding data centers criminally liable for facilitating AI chatbots that "endanger" children.
Talarico's data center proposal isn't all that different. He too would require data centers to pay for the full costs of their power and would end the sales tax exemption they can currently claim on equipment purchases. He'd also give local communities veto power over data center projects. That makes him more moderate on data centers than fellow Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who is running for governor against Abbott. She's called for a moratorium on data center construction until the state Legislature can convene to discuss "protections" for Texans.
Talarico's moderation could be partly explained by the fact that data centers are more popular, relatively speaking, in heavily Democratic urban areas. He also represents a slice of Austin, which has become a booming tech town. Why risk upsetting one's base when long-ruling Republicans already have to own the data center boom they were so recently bragging about?
The 2026 midterm environment seems almost tailor-made to neutralize Republicans' long-time advantages in Texas. Nationally, they have to own higher prices. Locally, they have to own an unpopular data center boom. Waning voter concerns about illegal immigration have caused their favored red-meat issue to turn a dull brown.
The Texas GOP's only weapon left is personal attacks on the man they call "Talafreako"—some weirdo liberal who calls trans kids "perfect" and thinks racism is the real virus. Talarico's persistent lead in the polls and on the prediction markets (which, in late October, put the chances of him winning at nearly 70 percent) suggest that these attacks are not working.
One could sense Republicans' desperation when right-wing influencers spun up a rumor that Talarico was absent from the campaign trail in early October because he was in a mental health facility in Ohio. (The hospital publicly denied ever treating Talarico. The candidate himself said he'd been recovering from the flu and said he'd never even visited Ohio.)
When Republicans call Talarico a freak, they mean to cast him as abnormal and off-putting: a "freak of nature." But freak has multiple usages. The word can also mean an unpredicted or unusual event: a "freak occurrence." Talarico succeeding in ending Republicans' three-decade run of statewide victories in Texas would fit the latter definition.
Rather than run from the Talafreako barb, Talarico's campaign has emblazoned merch with the intended insult. They at least seem to appreciate the irony of it all.
If Talarico is a freak, that will make his likely victory all the more freaky.
The post Will a Data Center Backlash Help James Talarico Turn Texas Blue? appeared first on Reason Magazine.
O presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), reeleito para um quarto mandato não consecutivo no domingo (25), falou na criação de uma inteligência artificial brasileira e em regular as big techs em discurso pós-reeleição, na Avenida Paulista, em São Paulo (SP).
“Iremos ensinar mais matemática e engenharia, porque eu não quero ficar dependendo de inteligência artificial chinesa ou americana. Eu quero criar uma brasileira”, afirmou.
Lula também falou em uma “intromissão vinda de fora através de plataformas digitais”, em alusão ao caso da Meta.
Desde o início do período eleitoral, a coligação liderada pelo PT e adversários do presidente, como o deputado Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG), acusaram a Meta de tentar interferir no pleito, supostamente influenciando métricas dos candidatos de um lado e bloqueando conteúdos de outros. Na última semana da corrida eleitoral, a big tech voltou ao centro do debate, quando surgiram novas denúncias de interferência, cobranças da Justiça eleitoral e a admissão da própria empresa de que há “falhas recorrentes” no controle do conteúdo.
“Não podemos ter empresas monstruosas de grande ganhando milhões e bilhões, não pagando imposto, e tentando direcionar o resultado eleitoral desse país”, disse Lula a apoiadores na Avenida Paulista.
Lula ainda afirmou que o Brasil é o País com maior potencial energético renovável para trazer data centers para solo nacional. No entanto, defendeu que as infraestruturas deverão armazenar também os dados brasileiros, não apenas o de empresas estrangeiras.
As falas de Lula durante o discurso repetem pontos que já foram apresentados no plano de governo.
O documento traz medidas relacionadas à soberania digital, com o desenvolvimento de um ecossistema nacional de tecnologia.
Isso inclui supercomputadores desenvolvidos e operados por instituições nacionais, e a expansão de data centers e de outras infraestruturas de IA no país — seja acompanhada de proteções socioambientais, incluindo impactos sobre o sistema elétrico, híbrido e população local.
No plano, Lula também prometeu a criação de um modelo de linguagem em português, voltado para os problemas do país, junto de uma plataforma nacional que forneça os dados de treinamento.
Sobre as plataformas, o plano de governo menciona mecanismos para “assegurar que o ambiente digital esteja submetido às leis brasileiras, proteja os direitos fundamentais e sirva ao interesse público” e a regulamentação das plataformas de jogos e dos ambientes digitais.
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to develop a domestic artificial intelligence system, expand technical education and attract data centers powered by renewable energy, aiming to strengthen Brazil’s technological independence and accelerate its transition to a developed economy.
RELATED: Lula Celebrates Reelection, Promises Education Reform and Sovereign AI
Speaking after his victory in the presidential runoff, Lula said Brazil must invest in mathematics and engineering to build its own artificial intelligence capabilities rather than depend on technology developed in China or the United States.
“We will teach more mathematics, more engineering, because I don’t want to depend on Chinese or American artificial intelligence; I want to create a Brazilian one,” he said.
Lula also pledged to use Brazil’s renewable energy resources to attract data centers and keep information stored within the country. The proposal forms part of a broader push to expand the digital economy and strengthen domestic technological capacity.
Text Reads: The Brazil we wish to build is a country where our elderly are cared for with dignity, women are respected, and everyone has the right to live out their faith in freedom.
It is a country that respects differences, with a State that guarantees rights for all—because to govern means to look after 215 million Brazilians, without distinction. Respect must be the starting point for us to build, together, a Brazil that is increasingly fair and humane.
“We want to transform this country from a developing country into a developed one,” he said, identifying the digital, green and creative economies as key areas for investment.
He also outlined an ambition for Brazil to play a central role in political and economic decision-making and in efforts to promote peace.
Lula promised that his next term would deliver unprecedented results, telling supporters: “I want to make a commitment: I will deliver the best term of office any president has ever had in Brazil’s history. You can be sure of that.”
The president-elect, who turns 81 on Oct. 27, dismissed concerns about his age as he prepares to take office for another term. He pledged to devote himself fully to the country’s development and to improving the daily lives of Brazilians.
“I will dedicate 20 or 24 hours a day to making this the country everyone dreams of, where people can go to sleep and wake up in complete peace of mind,” he said.
Lula also thanked voters for their support in the runoff and praised young people who took to the streets to defend democracy, crediting their participation as a key factor in his victory.
His pledges place artificial intelligence, renewable energy and digital infrastructure among the priorities he has outlined for Brazil’s next phase of development, alongside his ambition to transform the country into a developed nation.
© Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times
With public opposition toward data centers growing and midterm elections on the horizon, politicians across the spectrum have introduced overreaching policies to stymie data center development and ease voters' minds. These politicians now include President Donald Trump, who has historically been a staunch supporter of the industry.
"New and large, in some cases gigantic, Data Centers are mandated by me to make their own electricity, and give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid," Trump declared on Truth Social on Wednesday. "If companies want to make their Data Centers popular, pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a 'dividend.' I have watched the process closely, and Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck."
While Trump has suggested that power plants pay for their own power before, these comments are in stark contrast to him saying less than a couple of months ago that "the only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backward and poor." Still, the president is not wrong that the strategy could boost data centers' popularity; polling regularly shows that concerns over higher energy prices are one of the main reasons people oppose data centers in their communities.
However, mandating that these power plants "make their own electricity" is the wrong way to accomplish this objective, in part because generation costs are not the leading factor in higher electricity prices—transmission infrastructure, such as wires and poles, is. And regulatory barriers, as well as a lack of competition in the building of this infrastructure, are mostly to blame.
Regardless, if the goal is to have data center companies produce their own electricity, easing regulations would have more impact than imposing a mandate. As Travis Fisher, director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, tells Reason, "If a tech company buys electricity from the owner of a power plant, in most states the power plant owner then becomes a public utility (even if the transaction occurs off-grid), which brings heavy scrutiny in the form of economic regulation."
To ease these regulatory barriers, Fisher and other experts have advocated for a Consumer Regulated Electricity model that allows large-load customers to connect directly to unregulated power producers off the grid.
Fisher also notes that lower power costs don't automatically translate into lower utility rates. He tells Reason, "Even if a data center were to bring a matching or beating amount of supply relative to their demand, based on the way retail rates work, I am not convinced that that guarantees that prices will fall."
On top of not solving the main driver of higher electricity prices, the mandate isn't needed because many data centers have already begun to produce their own power. A report from energy research firm Cleanview shows that operating power capacity dedicated to data centers has nearly doubled since June, while capacity under construction has roughly quadrupled. Additionally, companies including Anthropic and Microsoft are already volunteering to cover consumers' electricity costs.
By calling on power producers to make their own electricity, Trump joins the growing chorus of politicians who are convinced that the government, not the market, is best equipped to dictate how data centers grow and operate. And, in typical Trump fashion, a "mandate" on social media without any legal action behind it has left the public and investors to guess what, if anything, is actually coming.
Building power plants requires long-term planning and investments meant to last decades, making Trump's tendency to impose abrupt policy changes less than ideal. "The fact that the rules change, not just every four years, but occasionally overnight via tweet," says Fisher, does not make for "a great investment environment."
The post Trump Wants To Force Data Centers To 'Make Their Own Electricity.' Deregulation Would Work Better. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Drones attacked a Russian tax-service data center overnight on 23 October, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported. A chemical plant in the Urals was also attacked, and a fire broke out near a Russian bomber base by late morning. Russian officials admitted injuries and damage but blamed falling debris. Ukraine has not commented.
Ukraine's long-range drones have widened their target list from Russian refineries to the servers and chemicals that keep Russia's state and war industry running.
The target in Gorodets, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, is one of the Federal Tax Service's two key data centers, which work as a geographically distributed pair. It stores and processes state registers, including tax databases, Exilenova+ said. The extent of the damage is unconfirmed. The site lies about 785 km from Ukraine's northern border in a straight line.
The moment of impact at Russia’s Federal Tax Service data center in Gorodets last night. pic.twitter.com/PftC6keRpY
— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 23, 2026
Eyewitness footage shows a blast and fire in the area of the data center, which serves both the tax service and the Finance Ministry, Russian Telegram channel Astra found. The center opened in 2015. Mikhail Mishustin, then head of the tax service and now Russia's prime minister, attended the launch.
Nizhny Novgorod Governor Gleb Nikitin claimed air defenses repelled 19 drones. Falling debris injured three people in the Gorodets district and damaged several homes, an educational facility, and an infrastructure facility, he said, and local schools switched to remote learning. A Pantsir air defense missile hit a house, Exilenova+ claimed, though officials recorded it as a drone hit.
This month, drones already hit three Yandex data centers and a VK data center near St. Petersburg.
In Berezniki, Perm Krai, smoke rose over Uralchem's Azot plant as air defenses fired, Astra reported. The regional security ministry announced a drone attack at about 06:00, and authorities closed the airspace within 50 km of the city. Ukraine's long-range Liutyi drones visited Berezniki, Exilenova+ wrote.
Our old friends, the Liutyi drones, paid Berezniki a visit today. Haven’t seen them in a while.
— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 23, 2026
The attack on Azot was continuing in the morning, the channel wrote, adding that the plant covers about 140 hectares with some 90 production buildings. It makes ammonia, nitric acid, ammonium and potassium nitrate, and urea. Russian defense plants use its nitric acid to make explosives and gunpowder, including the Perm gunpowder plant, Astra said. Berezniki lies 1,500–1,600 km from Ukraine's border and the war zone.
Drones attacked Azot before, on 11 September. Earlier this year, Ukraine's Security Service hit Lukoil's refinery in the same region.
Late in the morning, Voronezh Governor Aleksandr Gusev declared a missile alert, and explosions followed in the city. Gusev later claimed air defenses downed several "jet-powered aerial targets." Debris set dry grass on fire in a suburb and damaged outbuildings and several cars, he said, adding that no one was hurt.
Missile alert in several regions of the Russian Federation.
— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 23, 2026
Explosions have been heard in Voronezh. We are assessing the situation. pic.twitter.com/GY0NRZTo4x
Eyewitness footage shows fire and smoke near Baltimor military airfield, Astra found. The strike preliminarily hit the grounds of a former military aviation engineering university and a nearby parking area for military aircraft, Exilenova+ said.
Baltimor hosts the 47th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment, whose Su-34s Russia uses to strike Ukraine, Militarnyi reported, saying Ukraine attacked the airfield with missiles. Voronezh lies about 185 km from Ukraine's border. Smoke rose over the base after an attack on 27 May, and a fire broke out near it on 2 September.
Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it downed 443 drones overnight over 20 Russian regions, including Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and Perm Krai, as well as Russian-occupied Crimea and two seas. Ukraine's General Staff has not reported on the strikes. A night earlier, drones reportedly hit a sanctioned weapons plant near Moscow.
Russia's air defenses now have to cover state servers and Ural chemical plants as well as the airfields its bombers fly from.
For decades, Southeast Asia has turned great-power rivalry to an economic advantage. By maintaining healthy ties with Washington and Beijing, ASEAN governments attracted investment, expanded trade and preserved room for diplomatic maneuver. The great-power race for artificial-intelligence dominance, however, is changing that bargain. As the United States and China build competing technology networks, neutrality may […]
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Russian tech giant Yandex's data center in Sasovo burned out from the inside, a Ukrainian OSINT analyst wrote on 22 October. On cloud-free satellite images, he saw almost no significant holes in its roof. Ukrainian drones hit the site overnight on 8 October.
Sasovo was the first strike on a data center in Russia. It came two weeks after Russia destroyed data centers in Kyiv. Drones then hit Yandex sites in Vladimir and Kaluga, a Sber data center, and a VK data center near St. Petersburg, which VK acknowledged. In occupied Donbas, monitoring channels reported hits on buildings housing telecom operators.
The analyst, who goes by Harbuz, runs the Ukrainian OSINT channel Dnipro Osint. His roof reading comes from the images. His interior claim comes from what he called available information: he wrote that a fire broke out inside and put part of the equipment out of action.
In an earlier post, Harbuz wrote that a third of the data center had burned out. In the new one, he writes that the building burned out from the inside. He does not say whether he revised the earlier figure.
Russian outlet Agentstvo studied Airbus images from 12 October. It found damage on about a third of the building. Unlike Harbuz, though, Agentstvo described a blackened western roof with damage resembling holes.
On 8 October, Yandex stated that the attack caused a fire and forced it to suspend operations at the site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers, Reuters reported. Yandex Cloud and the Disk and Documents services that run on it ran with major disruptions that morning, Russian outlet The Bell reported.
Later that day, the company stated: "The scale of the damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed. For the moment, we cannot confirm whether it is possible to restore the data centre equipment in Sasovo." Two of Yandex's three supercomputers, used to develop its AI model, are housed there.
The same day, journalists asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether Ukraine was targeting Russian data centers. He did not refer specifically to the Yandex strike, Reuters noted, but said: "We always respond in mirror-like fashion."
© Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service, via Getty Images
© Scott Ball for The New York Times
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