Scala Data Centers, the leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centers in the Hyperscale market, announces the start of the SSCLCR01 data center operations, located in Curauma, Valparaíso region, Chile. Scala's new data center, boasting an investment of US$ 65 million and a robust 5MW of IT capacity, has been launched 100% booked to one Hyperscale customer. It is strategically situated in our Curauma Campus, poised for exponential growth, as it is designed to reach a critical capacity of approximately 30MW in the coming years.
Delivered in just 10 months, Scala's new data center is part of the company's strategy to enable new Hyperscale markets across Latin America. In addition to the availability of land, energy, connectivity, and proximity to consolidated markets – it is based 56 miles from the Santiago metropolitan area – Curauma will establish itself on the world's connectivity map with the arrival of the Humboldt submarine cable, which promises to connect Latin America to the Asia-Pacific regions for the first time. With around 9,500 miles of fiber, the Humboldt subsea cable will bring unprecedented scale, connection quality and lower latency between Latin America, Asia, and Oceania. Not to mention the connection the data center will have with the U.S. West Coast.
"In a scenario where 5G accelerates the deployment of various services and applications that use high data volume and require low latency, Scala has succeeded in choosing its first campus to become operational in Chile," evaluates Scala's CEO and Co-Founder Marcos Peigo. "Furthermore, aligned with our purpose of enabling the future in Latin America, we have created a unique opportunity here for customers positioned on the West Coast of the USA and for a potential group in APAC (Asia-Pacific and China) to offer their products and solutions to Latin American customers."
Powered by 100% renewable and certified energy, in line with the company's portfolio, the new Chilean data center was built based on the proprietary and innovative One Scala Template design and construction methodology. With high efficiency in the use of its resources, the SSCLCR01 data center was designed to operate with a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) lower than 1.2-1.3 and with a WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness) of zero as it uses air cooling.
The SSCLCR01 data center project was led by the company's pioneering Center of Excellence in Engineering (CoE), which has more than 340 engineers, architects, and data center specialists across Latin America. CoE oversees the planning and execution of all activities related to the construction and operation of a data center, from site selection, through planning, design, construction, and commissioning, which speeds up delivery to customers and brings gains in scale, energy efficiency, and greater control and visibility of projects.
All SSCLCR01 data center monitoring will be conducted by the company's Command Center, located at its operations headquarters in São Paulo, Brazil, where a trilingual team extensively uses technology, artificial intelligence, and rigorous quality processes to monitor and ensure security, in line with Scala's other sites in operation.
Growth in Chile. In addition to Curauma Campus, Scala continues to build Lampa Campus, in the metropolitan region of Santiago. This will be the largest data center campus ever built in Chile with an IT capacity of 80MW – considering 30MW for initial delivery in 2024. Also in the Santiago region, the installation of a HyperEdge data center is planned. Conceived by the CoE, this building will feature the proprietary FastDeploy design and construction methodology, which allows scalable implementation of edge data centers with the same high-quality experience as the traditional model, in up to 50% less time.
Scala will invest approximately US$ 400 million in Chile during the first phase of the three campuses. Strategically positioned, they will have a combined IT capacity of over 200MW, which is equivalent to around two times the total installed capacity currently in the country, or twice the critical capacity of mature markets in Europe such as Madrid.
Scala continues its accelerated expansion plan, with the construction of new sites at Tamboré Campus (São Paulo state, Brazil), Porto Alegre city (Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil), and Lampa (Chile), as well as advanced projects to implement other data centers in Jundiaí city (São Paulo state, Brazil), Fortaleza city (Ceará state, Brazil), Chile, Mexico, and Colombia. Since its founding in 2020, Scala has invested more than R$ 8 billion (~US$ 1.6 billion) in Hyperscale data centers in Latin America and expects to reach 500MW of distributed capacity over the next five years in four countries it operates. In 2023 alone, the company started operating three state-of-the-art data centers in Latin America, located specifically in Rio de Janeiro (13.2MW IT), Tamboré (6MW IT) and, now, in Curauma (5MW IT).
About Scala Data Centers
Scala Data Centers is the leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centers in the Hyperscale market. Headquartered in Brazil and founded by DigitalBridge, it was developed to meet and exceed the growing demand for digital access in Latin America. Scala has a highly qualified team of over 800 professionals and applies a flexible and innovative approach to providing exceptional quality colocation services to hyperscale clients, cloud-based software and service providers, and large enterprises. We customize state-of-the-art solutions for each client in the construction of the latest generation data centers, with high availability, the best energy efficiency rates, and superior density. All this allied to the best sustainability practices guided by our ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) program.