Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Uplink, where we explore the world of digital infrastructure, uncovering the technology fueling AI and cloud innovation, with the leaders making it happen. Gabriel, thank you for coming in, man. Yeah, yeah, it's exciting times in LATAM.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Absolutely. It's a pleasure being with you and doing this partnership. It's a great time in LATAM. We're doing so many things right now. I mean trying to help business to grow. So happy to be here, happy to partner with you guys and develop the region together.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Yeah, and we know the region's hot. There's a lot going on. We've got some interesting things going on with tariffs, but actually I think some things could play out positively. There's a lot of AI going on. I think there's a lot of sovereign capabilities for governments and so forth in the region. It's all happening, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:10

I think that all the countries, mainly the governments, are working each of them just to attract investments.

Speaker 2: 1:17

In order to do that, they are working on reducing tariffs in terms of the equipment that you need for AI GPUs and all that stuff and, at the same time, all the countries are also working in new renewable sources of energy.

Speaker 2: 1:33

So all of these things, we need to be fully aware of the impact that we are creating in the environment. So we are working with new technologies, renewable sources, and that is creating that kind of interesting environment to attract those investments, but, at the same time, to be sure that we can run those workloads in the region. So far, the region has been able to, I would say, run all those workloads related to the typical business. That is, a standard business working, but now it's time that we start receiving all the workloads for AI. So we are preparing ourselves for that. All the companies that we are providing services are investing in new technologies liquid cooling technologies and all that stuff. But also to be sure that we can in those areas that we are working on is to be sure that we can host those capabilities, to be sure we have the right people to do that the new talent. So training new talent, at the same time helping companies to adopt those new technologies that are critical for their success.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Well, you're perfectly positioned. I mean, how many data centers do you have now? We have right now 18. 18 in the region.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Yes, so all across the region. So our main strength is to be very close to the customer. It's important that you mention about data sovereignty. There are many customers still for different regulations. They need to run their workloads in the country, so it's excellent and good that we're very well positioned to do that and to host that, but at the same time, we're building new data centers right now.

Speaker 2: 3:13

The new ones are bigger in terms of scales, more power, more capacity, more power density and the next, and we are planning and working with many of the large hyperscalers on the new playbooks they are writing to run, of course, ai technologies or AI workloads, so we are in an excellent position to do that, but at the same time, it's very interesting that we work together to offer the customers alternatives to connect yes, because of course, they need to run workloads for data for different reasons, for their applications and all that stuff but at the same time, they need options to connect to the world yes, we need to help them to connect their business to their absolutely global yes, and they need to have options to connect to anywhere and to everywhere, and so the point is that options neutrality is something that is extremely important.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Yes, yeah, and that's where we're partnering a lot and we appreciate that I think the whole regions servicing, I mean, it's such a huge population that it services across that region. Each region is different in terms of different governments and different tariff structures, and how are you seeing it play out in terms of different governments and different tariff structures and how are you seeing it play out in terms of bigger companies that are multinational in the region? Are they making choices around where they put their loads, based on costs or talent or power, or? I think you also talked about renewable energy and I know that's a that's a hot topic, particularly in the Brazilian region, maybe more broadly. So, yeah, what's sort of playing out in the decisions of companies? Is there anything sort of driving that either which way, or is it an?

Speaker 2: 4:53

excellent question because I mean in the perfect world you could put any workload in the best place in the world. That it has to be cool.

Speaker 2: 5:02

You don't need to call it Cyberia, for instance, and it has to be well connected. You have to have all the talent, all the ability to have power. But the other point is extremely important is latency. So you need low latency. So there is a mix there, of course. Uh, population, people. So what? What we see is that content people just looking at the eyeball. They need to be closer to the eyeball, so latency is critical, so they need to be spread across so usually they are very close to the eyeballs yes using different technologies to get there.

Speaker 2: 5:38

And the other thing is where, if I'm a multinational company, if I were to be, of course you need to be close to your customers and in that case, again, latency is critical. So that's why there are many, I would say, service providers establishing their services closer to the country, to where the business is happening, to where the transactions are happening. Yes, so it's a mix.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah, it mixes out. Now you've been in the industry a while, you've seen a lot of change. I'm curious what's your take on the market right now compared to maybe, say, five years ago? And then I'd love you to give some sort of thoughts for folks looking at considering entering the industry what advice you'd give them.

Speaker 2: 6:24

And you know it's been a great journey and I think you've got a long way to go in terms of all the the growth that we've got. But, yeah, it'd be good to, yeah, and hear some viewpoints there. Yeah, I think that, uh, thank you for that, but I'm quite old, right, that experience means some time being there. But the point that, um, I think that the region is preparing uh, uh very well for the next steps. Yes, I think that we have had some challenges, but now we are getting into a point where the investment's there, the capital's there Exactly, of course, talent's coming through Economy is getting better.

Speaker 2: 6:52

Yes, in general terms. So all the countries are learning that. I mean, it doesn't matter what the political color you're in. You need to be always fostering and helping companies to establish their investments and to grow and to connect globally. So right now, the region is part of the global world, which is something that has changed in the last few years. So I think the region and, in general, the countries are more open to discuss that. When I say more open, it's to discuss everything. It's not only about technology, it's about tariff, it's about immigration, it's about how people move, how you connect the taxes that you get into countries.

Speaker 2: 7:32

So I think that we are very well prepared. This is changing. I think that the region understood that the region it's not a region exactly, it's a federation of countries to say that as you said, it's more like Europe rather than any other place in the world.

Speaker 2: 7:50

So I think that we are understanding right now that we need to play a different role in the world and together it's going to be much easier. So that's the kind of changes that we have seen, and this is important because we are learning together and open to the world.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah, well, I've seen, and with my experience we've seen incredibly powerful companies that are servicing the region that you're not traditionally familiar with, say in the US, for example, or even Australia, et cetera. They're very large companies, like you know. I thought, where's Amazon? You don't have Amazon, you know what you do. But it's MercadoLibre. It's really interesting Big, big companies that are scaling out through the regions, which is exciting. So you can see that playing out. We can see the investment coming through, we can see the builds coming through. So what advice would you give someone entering into the industry or the space, particularly in LATAM? Is it a place to invest your career? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 8:47

Yeah, I think two things there. I think that large companies are taking, I would say, a better look at LATAM at the moment trying to invest there and to grow there. At the same time, we have seen in the last few years some unicorns coming from the region which is excellent.

Speaker 2: 9:01

It means that there is talent there, there is a lot of creativity and interest to grow and I would say they're eager to start something new. So people are very adaptable to that and so there are many opportunities to work together so those investments can come there, work with existing companies, start new things a lot of startups going on and I truly believe that there are opportunities to grow together.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Yeah, the startup is such an exciting space. It's a lot of hustle and it's starting to come out a lot across the region. Actually, we've been working with a few that have just phenomenal and in fact scaling globally. I think most of the in a few of the examples, most of the revenues in the United States they've actually sort of pivoted out to service the regions beyond. So that's also exciting to see that.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Yeah, from the services perspective, for sure, because the I mean providing services from the region to US, for instance the same time zone is great.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Yes, correct.

Speaker 2: 10:04

We're exploding and that's much easier to go work in the same time zone with anybody in us. So for the services business, the, the software business and also all related to, uh, the way that we are putting more, I would say, knowledge, technology and talent into that exploding, no well, we appreciate the, we love what you're doing, anything that we can do to make it bigger and better and take it to the world.

Speaker 1: 10:28

That's what we're here to help you do. We certainly want to, from our connectivity platform, enable all the global companies very fast connectivity back into the region and also out of the region as well, to make sure that we're taking you to the world. So it's exciting, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Thank you for that, for the partnership. We truly believe that together we can offer options to the customers, options, alternatives to go global yeah, 100%. And that's the kind of freedom that we need to put in front of the customers, allow them to grow with different alternatives and helping them to learn, and we can grow all together 100%.

Speaker 1: 11:05

You know, gabriel, I know you're on a mission with the company, but we were chatting before. I'd love you to share that with the audience, maybe for this.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Yeah, our purpose is to further people's progress through technology. This is what we do every single day. We work on that and we are trying to do it not only with our people, but with the people living in the region. So helping the companies and helping everybody to do that.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Yeah, so not only your company, but the companies you service and the people in the region. Yeah, it's awesome You're achieving that. The investments you're putting in place is phenomenal, and even what you're building and what you've already built is there to help that. So, yeah, we love what.