Scala Data Centers builds an $80M data center in Tepotzotlán, Mexico

Scala Data Centers, an emerging Latin American data center provider for the hyperscale market, is building its first data center in Mexico, SMEXTP01, with an initial investment of about $80 million.

Located in the municipality of Tepotzotlán, about 25 miles from the country's capital in Mexico City (CDMX), it will have an initial critical capacity of 5MW, reinforcing Scala's strategy of enabling new markets in Latin America to meet the massive demands being made by hyperscale providers. Set to be operational in the fourth quarter, the new data center already has secured a large hyperscale customer.

With 142,133 square feet (about 13.2 thousand square meters) of built area, the SMEXTP01 HyperEdge data center will offer customization and modularity and be supplied with 100% renewable and certified energy, in line with the company's portfolio. Mexico is fast becoming a hub for IT infrastructure.

As Latin America's second-largest data center and cloud market, the country has robust growth rates of around 22% and 25% per year, respectively, and plenty of connectivity infrastructure. Today, there are 11 submarine cables connecting Mexico to the United States and the rest of the Americas. In addition to Chile, where Scala also operates data centers, Mexico is one of the only countries in the region that will have a direct connection via submarine cable to the Asian market.

"This new project underscores our commitment to enabling new markets in Latin America, either in unexplored locations or in regions with data center presence, but still lacking a dedicated approach to large IT capacities that truly serve the hyperscale segment," explains Marcos Peigo, CEO and co-founder for Scala.

Besides its investment in SMEXTP01, Scala continues its accelerated expansion plan, with the construction of new sites at Tamboré Campus (São Paulo, Brazil), Porto Alegre city (Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil), Lampa (Chile), as well as advanced projects to implement other data centers in Fortaleza city (Ceará state, Brazil), Mexico and Colombia.

Since its inception in 2020, Scala has invested more than $1.6 billion in its projects in Latin America. It expects to reach 500MW of distributed capacity in four countries where it operates over the next five years. In 2023, the company started operating data centers in Latin America, located in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) (13.2 MW of IT), Tamboré (Brazil) with 6MW of IT, and Curauma (Chile) offering 5MW of IT.

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