DIGITAL LIFE

Geopolitics in the cloud: the race between the Brazilian government and companies for data sovereignty

With escalating geopolitical tensions, the monopoly of big tech companies, and growing technological competition between major powers, the Brazilian government and companies have been seeking alternatives to repatriate their data, aiming to reduce the risks of foreign surveillance, strengthen digital sovereignty, and expand the protection of strategic information.

In Brazil, concern about data sovereignty has gained prominence in the last two years, mainly with the election of Donald Trump for his second term as President of the United States. The wars between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas also reinforce the climate of insecurity.

The movement is global. The geopatriation of data, the act of transferring company data and applications from global public clouds to local options, has been identified by Gartner as one of the 10 strategic technology trends for 2026.

“There are concerns about information sovereignty and the laws of each country. Companies that fear that countries like the US and China may have some geopolitical problem generally seek local providers where they would be more protected,” explains Henrique Cecci, senior research director at Gartner.

Estimates from the research firm indicate that 75% of customers in Europe and the Middle East are expected to seek local cloud solutions in the next five years, compared to 5% currently. Although Gartner does not present specific projections for Brazil, Cecci states that demand here should also grow rapidly, albeit at different rates in each region.

Accelerated growth...The Brazilian company Eveo has benefited from the trend of data geopatriation and the search for cheaper services in the technology area. With the increased demand for local private clouds, the cloud company is expected to double in size this year.

According to Lucas Vanzin, co-founder and co-CEO of Eveo, the public cloud offers agility and elasticity to guarantee extra storage capacity on demand for companies, such as during Black Friday, which will take place next Friday (28). The private cloud, being local and dedicated to a single organization, guarantees greater control, customization, and security at a lower cost.

According to Eveo's Cost Reality Report 2025, Brazilian companies can reduce total cost of ownership by up to 60% by repatriating systems from the public cloud, usually offered by tech giants, to private or hybrid environments.

Cost cutting...The study analyzed invoices from 30 medium and large Brazilian companies over 12 months, simulating three scenarios: public, private, and hybrid cloud. The projections considered a five-year period, the exchange rate between the real and the dollar, and average inflation on the price of energy.

“Since the market is growing a lot, there's room for everyone. We even suggest the public cloud for clients with a larger workload. As specialists, we know the limitations of each option,” says Vanzin.

According to Igor Santos, an executive in the data storage and protection business unit at IBM Brazil, companies should not only evaluate the adoption of multiple cloud providers, but also have resilience in case of failures.

“The current geopolitical scenario reinforces that security should not be treated as an isolated component, but as an architectural strategy. Furthermore, modern security is based on the principle that incidents can happen, and the priority becomes the ability to recover quickly,” he analyzes.

Government Cloud...Data repatriation is not limited to the private sector. To strengthen the security of public data, the federal government launched the so-called "Government Cloud" in June, operated by the state-owned companies National Intelligence in Digital Government and Information Technology (Serpro) and Social Security Technology and Information Company (Dataprev).

The model foresees more than R$ 1 billion in investments and has partnerships with technology giants such as AWS, Huawei, Google, and Oracle.

According to the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGI), the "sovereign cloud" will primarily handle information requiring enhanced protection, such as tax, banking, business, and industrial data.

"Currently, we have 11 agencies migrating their data to this government cloud, and we aim to repatriate 20% of the data by the end of the current administration," says Rogério Mascarenhas, Secretary of Digital Government at MGI.

According to Mascarenhas, the initiative is also being developed in other countries, notably the European Union.

"In a complicated geopolitical moment, the country is moving forward with a model that ensures data is located in Brazil and hosted by public IT companies. This way, if a problem occurs, such as a cable break, for example, Brazilians will not be harmed, and public services will continue."

Reporter: Patricia Basilio, Brazil