Brazilian telecommunications company Embratel has announced plans to build 15 edge data centres in the country.
Embratel, owned by Mexican telecommunications giant America Movil, is a major player in both voice and data communication in Brazil, owning microwave communications and fibre optic networks as well as domestic communication satellites and submarine cable systems. It also owns six data centres in the country.
According to news website Bnamerica, three edge data centres are being built this year and another 12 should be built in 2022, with retail and industry 4.0 the target markets. They will be built in various areas between Manaus, in the north of the country, and the south and southeast of Brazil.
The company is also planning to expand the capacity of one of its six main data centres, sited in the Lapa neighbourhood of São Paulo (it has two data centres in this city), an undertaking that is expected to begin next year.
As well as its two data centres in São Paulo, Embratel has two more in Rio, one in Vitoria and one in Brasilia.
The modest investment in the edge projects, estimated at just over $9 million, reflects the fact that edge data centres are smaller facilities, located close to the populations they serve, that deliver cloud computing resources and cached content to end users. They are usually more widely distributed than traditional data centres but often connect to a larger central data centre or multiple data centres.
By processing data and services as close to the end user as possible, edge computing is said to allow organizations to reduce latency and improve the customer experience.