Rio AI City is a large-scale initiative aimed at positioning Rio de Janeiro as a key player in the global digital infrastructure landscape. Announced in 2025, the project seeks to attract US$65 billion in investment and develop a 3 GW data center campus by 2032, responding to the growing global demand for AI and data processing capacity.
To discuss how this initiative reflects a broader shift toward expanding the physical backbone of artificial intelligence, we invite Osmar Lima, Municipal Secretary of Economic Development of Rio de Janeiro for a conversation to explore how initiatives like Rio AI City are reshaping the geography of the digital economy, and the policy, sustainability, and investment challenges they raise.
Painelists Bio
Osmar Lima holds a degree in Production Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), a Master’s in Production Engineering from COPPE/UFRJ, and the CFA Charterholder certification. He has over 14 years of experience at the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), where he spent the last seven years focused on project structuring. At BNDES, he served as Head of Public Real Estate Assets, and previously worked as a Credit Analyst in the Industrial Division and as an Investment Manager in private equity. Osmar currently serves as the Municipal Secretary for Economic Development for the City of Rio de Janeiro, leading initiatives to foster the city’s economic growth. He is also President of Companhia Carioca de Parcerias e Investimentos (CCPar), the municipal company responsible for structuring and managing the city’s main public- private partnership projects. CCPar plays a strategic role in structuring, managing, and promoting the urban and economic development of the Porto Maravilha area, which includes the Olympic Boulevard. Its contribution was essential to enable the installation of the globes along the Boulevard and to contribute to bringing the Earthshot event to life in the area.In addition, CCPAR also supported and financed the wrapping of the VLT, reinforcing its commitment to the event.
Daniela Campello is Tinker Visiting Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Columbia University. She previously served as Associate Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro and Assistant Professor at Princeton University. Campello was also a Visiting Fellow at University of Oxford and at the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. She holds a degree in Production Engineering from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, Los Angeles. Her research sits at the intersection of international and comparative political economy, with a particular emphasis on the political consequences of globalization in emerging economies. Her work has been published in leading political science journals, and she is the author of The Politics of Market Discipline in Latin America (2015) and co-author of The Volatility Curse (2020). She is currently working on a new book project, provisionally titled Obstructing the Future: The Politics of Climate Policy in Brazil. Before entering academia, Campello worked as a business consultant at Accenture, a sell-side financial analyst at BTG Pactual, and a project manager for the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro, overseeing initiatives financed by international financial institutions.
