On October 22, Crusoe announced a strategic partnership with Paraguayan energy and infrastructure developer Araico to build AI compute infrastructure in Paraguay powered by the Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam. According to the announcement, it is the company's first dedicated AI cloud deployment in Latin America.
The project will sit next to the Itaipú substation, on the Paraná River on the Brazil–Paraguay border, and will serve cloud customers in the United States and growing demand across Latin America through the Crusoe Cloud platform.
The first phase is due online in mid-2027, with a path to 106 MW of IT capacity. Long-term options could expand the total to about 280 MW — an expansion option, not a commitment with an announced timetable.
Araico will lead local development and site infrastructure, while Crusoe will manage, operate and deliver the physical compute for Crusoe Cloud.
Crusoe co-founder Cully Cavness said Paraguay's history and geography enabled one of the world's most abundant renewable power sources through Itaipú, and that the company's energy-first strategy is designed to unlock that kind of resource. Paraguay's president, Santiago Peña, said the partnership unlocks new value from the country's natural resources and could help Paraguay become a regional leader in AI infrastructure, with jobs, investment and innovation. Araico CEO Alejandro Zuccolillo said pairing Itaipú's hydroelectric capacity with Crusoe's infrastructure turns the country's renewable abundance into high-tech industrial growth, local jobs and digital innovation.
The logic is to place compute where energy is abundant — the same strategy Crusoe already applies in North America and Europe, now extended to Latin America. The announcement does not disclose the project's investment value.
Founded in 2018, Crusoe began with cryptocurrency mining alongside oil and gas pipelines, launched a GPU cloud service in 2023 and later moved away from crypto. It now operates seven cloud regions, including two in Iceland and one in Norway as well as regions in the United States, and is developing a large data center campus in Texas alongside Oracle for OpenAI's Stargate project, according to Data Center Dynamics.
Image credit: photograph of the Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam published on Itaipu's official website (itaipu.energy).
Sources: Data Center Dynamics, Developing Telecoms e Unite.AI.
Transparency: this article was produced with the help of artificial intelligence, based on cross-checking public posts on X and internet sources. Check the original sources to confirm the details before sharing.
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