Concerns about indigenous rights, the environment, and the constitution
A Brazilian indigenous community has filed a complaint to halt the construction of a TikTok data center.
As reported by Politica & Poder, the Anace Indigenous community, which resides in the northeastern province of Ceara around the municipalities of Caucaia and Sao Goncalo do Amarante, filed a complaint against the Brazilian government on August 26 to stop the development of a data center being built on land claimed by the community.
The facility, which will be developed by Brazilian wind energy company Casa dos Ventos and operated by Bytedance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, is set to be constructed within the Pecem Industrial and Port Complex, which is located north of Ceara’s state capital, Fortaleza.
Regulatory approval was granted to the facility in June of this year, with construction expected to commence in the second half of 2025 and operations scheduled to begin in January 2027. Total investment in infrastructure and equipment is expected to reach up to 50 billion reais ($8.7bn).
In response, on August 4, the Anace community occupied the headquarters of the State Superintendent for the Environment (SEMACE) in Caucaia.
Although DCD was unable to acquire a copy of the August 26 complaint, several Brazilian publications, including Agencia Eco Nordeste, report that the complaint includes calls for the data center’s environmental licensing process to be canceled, notes that the facility is improperly classified as a low-impact activity, and demands the cancellation of the facility’s development license.
The complaint was lodged on the basis of environmental, procedural, and constitutional grounds while touching on issues related to land ownership.
Environmental issues
The complaint first contests the claims about water usage made by Casa dos Ventos. The Intercept Brasil reported that Casa dos Ventos' sustainability report claimed the facility would consume around 30,000 liters of water per day, which the complaint characterizes as an underestimate.
Instead, the complaint estimates that a data center uses between 11 million and 19 million liters a day according to “international benchmarks.” This figure, which appears in an article written by BBC News in February 2025, is attributed to Dr. Venkatesh Uddameri, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lamar University who specializes in water resources.
The BBC article states that Uddameri’s calculations are “based on arid, or semi-arid, climates and do not take into account recent efficiency improvements or developments in AI.”
Another estimate of average usage was issued by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its April report, stating that the average 100MW data center consumes around two million liters of water per day. Given that development plans show that the facility intends to offer 210MW of capacity in its first phase and up to 300MW at full buildout, per the IEA’s calculations, the facility would use more water than the company claims but less than Anace’s estimates.
But Joao Caldas, Casa dos Vento’s director for Innovation, told Política & Poder that the facility would employ closed-loop liquid cooling, which has been shown to use less water than traditional air cooling systems. A Microsoft study in May 2025 stated that liquid cooling could reduce data center water usage by 31 to 52 percent.
Procedural and land ownership issues
Anace leader Cacique Roberto Ytaysaba Anace also told Rest of World that the government had not respected the community’s right to consultation, which he claims is guaranteed under the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention to which Brazil is a signatory.
Article 6.1 in Convention 169 of the ILO, titled the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, states that governments shall “consult the peoples concerned, through appropriate procedures and in particular through their representative institutions” and “establish means by which these peoples can freely participate.”
The two parties also disagree as to whether the land belongs to the community or not. Casa dos Ventos told Rest of World that the land allocated for the data center does not overlap with titled Indigenous lands, and told Politica & Poder that the construction work is more than 20km away from indigenous territory.
Ytaysaba contests this, claiming that the distance is 3km (1.86 miles) on the basis that the Brazilian Constitution granted the Anace rights over land that “they traditionally occupy,” as per Article 231.
Casa dos Ventos is increasingly targeting data center developers as crucial offtakers of its unused wind energy portfolio. Last October, the company signed a long-term supply agreement with Latin American data center developer OData to supply power from its 360MW Babilônia Sul wind complex in Várzea Nova, Bahia, Brazil.
According to the company, it has a portfolio of 3.1GW of operational wind power assets, in addition to a further 30GW currently under development. Its operational assets include the 151.2MW Folha Larga Sul wind farm in Campo Formoso, and the 1.038GW Rio do Vento wind farm in São Tomé, Lajes, Caiçara, Rio do Vento.
Brazil’s data center market has seen growth in recent years. The Brazilian government has been welcoming – in April 2025, it announced tax exemptions for data center operators provided they used 100 percent renewable energy and reserved a portion of data center space for domestic customers. According to Reuters, the incentives are set to debut in early September.
Source: DCD
