Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2679 actions· ✨ 92 recent

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 200 million (~USD 37.5 million) in financing for Scala Data Centers S.A. — Latin America's largest sustainable hyperscale data-center platform, backed by DigitalBridge — to acquire and install machinery, equipment, IT/automation systems and materials for its data-center infrastructure. The loan is drawn under the BNDES Máquinas e Serviços credit line, which prioritises nationally manufactured goods and national services, permitting imported equipment only where no domestic equivalent is available. BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante framed the financing as part of the Lula government's Nova Indústria Brasil industrial-policy programme, aimed at the digital transformation of Brazilian industry. This is the second such operation for Scala: a prior BRL 180 million tranche in the same format was already fully disbursed.

On 29 October 2025, Brazil's national development bank BNDES, through its capital-markets subsidiary BNDESPAR, launched a public call ("Chamada Pública para Seleção de Fundos de Investimento em Índice de Mercado") to invest up to BRL 1 billion (~USD 187 million) across up to five exchange- traded index funds (ETFs). Each selected fund can receive up to BRL 200 million, capped at 50% of the fund's total assets, split across three equity ETFs, one fixed-income ETF and one hybrid-strategy ETF. Proposals were due 5 December 2025; five funds were subsequently selected, three of them explicitly thematic — infrastructure, clean energy, and a "strategic sectors" index — turning a capital-markets liquidity instrument into a channel for directing state development-bank capital toward BNDES's industrial-policy priorities.

On 18 September 2025 Brazil's federal government published Medida Provisória (Provisional Measure) 1318/2025, creating REDATA — the Special Taxation Regime for Datacenter Services — alongside a parallel IT-export regime (REPES). REDATA zeroes federal taxes on servers, storage, networking, cooling and other datacenter capital equipment for qualifying operators from 1 January 2026, conditioned on 100% renewable/zero-carbon energy sourcing, a 2% of investment R&D-in-Brazil commitment, and preferential use of Brazilian- manufactured components. The Finance Ministry projects R$5.2 billion in forgone-tax incentives in 2026 alone, with potential to unlock up to R$2 trillion in private datacenter investment over ten years. REDATA is framed as implementing the National Datacenter Policy (PNDC) under the Nova Indústria Brasil industrial-policy umbrella.

On 15 September 2025, Brazil's national development bank BNDES and research-financing agency Finep announced the results of a public call (Chamada Pública) to attract, implant or expand corporate research, technological-development and innovation (PD&I) centres in Brazil. The call, launched in February 2025 with an initial R$3 billion budget, drew 618 proposals worth R$57.4 billion in prospective investment — more than 19x the original allocation. BNDES and Finep selected 88 proposals and expanded the committed budget to R$8.9 billion (of a total R$10 billion in associated project investment), delivered through a mix of credit, equity participation, non-reimbursable cooperative-research grants and economic subsidies. 27 of the selected proposals target the North, Northeast and Center-West regions (R$4bn in investment); a further 27 are exclusively new-centre implantations (R$3.4bn). The selected projects project hiring of 935 qualified researchers (572 master's, 363 doctoral). The call operates under Brazil's Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) framework and is explicitly aligned to NIB's six industrial-policy missions.

On 25 August 2025, Brazil's federal government launched a combined BRL 12 billion (~USD 2.2bn) subsidised credit line to fund the diffusion of Industry 4.0 machinery and equipment across the Brazilian industrial base. BNDES (national development bank) contributes BRL 10 billion nationwide through its "Crédito Indústria 4.0" line; Finep (research-financing agency) adds BRL 2 billion via its "Difusão Tecnológica" line, reserved for companies in the North, Northeast and Center-West regions to narrow regional investment gaps. Financing covers capital goods incorporating robotics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, sensing, machine-to-machine communication and IoT, at concessional rates of roughly 7.5-8% plus spread; credit approvals began 15 September 2025. The line operates under the Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) national industrial-policy framework.

On 28 May 2025, Brazilian President Lula launched "Chamada Nordeste" in Salgueiro (Pernambuco) — a BRL 10 billion (~USD 1.8bn) public call for structuring investment projects in the nine Northeast states, run jointly by BNDES, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, Banco do Nordeste (BNB) and Finep, with technical support from Sudene and the Northeast Consortium. It is the largest project call ever run for the region and sits under the federal Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) industrial-policy umbrella. Eligible business plans (minimum BRL 10 million) cover storage/renewable energy, bioeconomy with a pharmaceuticals focus, green hydrogen, green data centers and the automotive/agricultural-machinery sector, financed via a combination of credit lines, non-reimbursable economic subsidies and equity participation; the proposal deadline was 15 September 2025. Demand vastly exceeded supply: the call drew 245 proposals totalling roughly BRL 127.8 billion — nearly 13 times the initial BRL 10bn envelope — before BNDES approved 189 projects worth BRL 113 billion in follow-on selection rounds.