TikTok’s Billion-Dollar Brazil Data Center Sparks Indigenous Land Dispute

Brazil’s vision to transform itself into a global data center hub is colliding with deep-rooted cultural and ethical challenges. The latest flashpoint: a $9.1 billion TikTok data center project that has drawn a lawsuit from an Indigenous community claiming the facility is being built on their ancestral land without proper consultation.

Brazil’s Bid to Become a Data Powerhouse

Over the past year, Brazil has positioned itself as Latin America’s next major digital infrastructure frontier. The government has rolled out sweeping incentives, including tax exemptions and renewable energy support, to attract global hyperscalers seeking greener, cheaper, and faster data processing capabilities.

At the center of this push is ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, which plans to begin construction on a massive data facility within six months. The project, developed jointly with Casa dos Ventos, a renewable energy firm, is expected to cost nearly 50 billion reais (around $9.11 billion).

The proposed site, the Pecém port complex in Ceará, was strategically chosen for its wind power capacity and proximity to undersea data cables. Between May 2024 and June 2025, Brazil saw a 330% rise in requests from data center developers to connect to the national grid, a surge powered by AI’s growing computational demand and Brazil’s strong renewable energy mix.

Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira has described the project as “a milestone in Brazil’s clean digital expansion,” arguing it will generate thousands of jobs and solidify Brazil’s place in the global tech economy.

Indigenous Resistance: The Anacé Stand Their Ground

While the government celebrates the deal, the Anacé Indigenous community has taken a very different view. Representing roughly 1,500 families, the Anacé have filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the construction of the ByteDance facility.

Their claim: the project sits on ancestral territory that holds deep spiritual and ceremonial significance, and it was approved without the legally required consultation process guaranteed under international Indigenous rights conventions.

“Our right to consultation was ignored,” said Cacique Roberto Ytaysaba Anacé, one of the community’s leaders. “The data center will be built right next to the river, a sacred area for our people.”

The Anacé community argues that despite lacking official land titles, Brazil’s Constitution recognizes their right to the lands they have traditionally occupied. They have invoked the International Labour Organization’s Convention, which requires governments to obtain Indigenous consent before approving major projects affecting their territory.

Environmental and Legal Flashpoints

The dispute also highlights wider tensions between sustainability pledges and on-the-ground environmental realities.

Water use has emerged as a central issue. The project’s developers estimate the facility will consume around 30,000 liters of water per day, but the Anacé argue that figure is unrealistically low. Globally, large data centers have faced similar backlash; Google in Chile and Amazon in Arizona both drew criticism for straining local water systems in drought-prone regions.

The Ceará state environmental agency maintains that no Indigenous consultation was required because the land is not officially demarcated, while Casa dos Ventos insists it followed every regulatory step and that the construction site does not overlap with recognized Indigenous land.

Still, Indigenous advocates counter that formal land registration cannot override centuries of cultural connection and that bypassing consultation violates both national and international law.

A Broader Pattern of Resistance

For the Anacé, this is not their first confrontation with industrial expansion. They previously blocked a thermal power plant in the same region after a prolonged legal battle. But this time, the stakes are higher, both financially and politically.

The case has quickly become an emblem of Indigenous resistance to the unchecked growth of global tech infrastructure in the Global South. Seven Anacé leaders are now under official protection following death threats linked to the dispute.

Analysts suggest the outcome of this case could set a critical precedent for how Brazil, and perhaps other developing nations, balance foreign tech investment with Indigenous and environmental rights.

The Crossroads of Technology and Territory

The TikTok data center controversy highlights a larger paradox in the digital era: the infrastructure that powers social media, cloud computing, and AI still depends on physical resources such as land, water, and energy, often drawn from marginalized regions.

For Brazil, the path to becoming a data center hub is paved with opportunity, but also responsibility. As one of the world’s greenest energy grids collides with one of its oldest cultures, the question becomes not just how Brazil builds its digital future, but where and at what cost.