Gigawatt Ledger · one-page briefing
Campus profile Operating
Greater São Paulo cluster
Scala Data Centers · Ascenty · AWS · Barueri / Tamboré, São Paulo, Brazil
The resource footprint
Modelled averageIn one day, this campus consumes about
11.250-metre swimming pools
Filled with the volume of water consumed by the campus and its electricity supply.
The actual estimate7,401,797 US gallons consumed
Power-plant water may come from a different watershed. This is a volume comparison, not a claim that households lose this water.
At current operating capacity · Annual model spread evenly over time, not a live meter. Site estimates may differ by roughly ±40%.
Comparison sizes & sources
One pool = 50 × 25 × 2 metres = 2.5 million litres (about 660,430 US gallons). Pool depths vary; this is a defined comparison size.
One home-year = 10,791 kWh, the EIA’s 2022 average US residential electricity purchases. This excludes electricity generated at home and is a fixed US benchmark for all sites.
One car-year = 4.6 tonnes CO₂, the EPA’s typical passenger vehicle tailpipe estimate. The campus model is in CO₂e; the comparison expresses approximate climate scale, not equal mixtures of pollutants.
Monthly values are annual totals ÷ 12; daily values are annual totals ÷ 365. Actual demand varies. Comparisons cover the whole campus, including non-AI uses.
Water: see the numbers and sources
This is water used up, mainly through evaporation. Power-generation water may be used in a different watershed.
- Pressure on local water
- High — a regional measure of demand compared with available water
- Where the water comes from
- Municipal potable supply
- Cooling
- Evaporative and chilled water
- Basis
- Modelled from cooling design — WUE 0.68 L/kWh
Air: see the numbers and sources
The totals include nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and fine particles. They cover both this site and the power plants supplying it.
- Health range
- $3.21–9.47 million a year. Lower bound is EASIUR national mid-range; upper is EPA benefit-per-ton at a ~$12M VSL.
- Statistical deaths
- 0.79 a year at that VSL — a national-average conversion from tons, not a local concentration study.
- Equals
- 125,268 cars of NOx
- Where it burns
- Brazil — ONS
- Generation mix
- Hydro 58 · Wind 14 · Solar 9 · Gas 8
- Diesel backup
- Diesel backup is not yet counted for this campus, so on-site air figures are a floor.
- CO₂e
- 246 kt/yr — climate, not air quality
The project, approvals and community concerns
- Who asked for it
- AWS, Microsoft, Google and Latin American enterprises; Scala has marketed a 4.7 GW AI City campus in Rio Grande do Sul
- Who approved it
- São Paulo state environmental licensing; Brazil's 2025 REDATA tax regime offers exemptions in exchange for domestic capacity commitments
- What it serves
- Latin American cloud regions and a growing AI training footprint
- IT capacity
- 400 MW current capacity / 1,200 MW full-build scenario
Brazil's hydro-dominated grid gives it some of the lowest-carbon compute outside the Nordics, but São Paulo's own reservoir crises make water the pressure point. The 2014–15 drought remains the reference case locally.
Keep this guide handy
-23.5100°, -46.8700°
Quote or share these estimates
Gigawatt Ledger (2026). Greater São Paulo cluster: water and air. https://gigawatt-ledger.pages.dev/site/saopaulo/. Modelled from disclosed capacity; site-level error ±40%.
Include the estimate’s date, whether it describes current or proposed capacity, and its uncertainty. Get an embeddable card.
Gigawatt Ledger · September 2026. Water and air figures are estimated from public records and disclosed capacity. How we calculate them · Use this in your community.