Brazil is positioning itself as a key player in shaping the governance and economic impact of artificial intelligence (AI), emphasizing questions of political economy over the competitive race narrative prevalent in Silicon Valley. Ahead of national elections in October, Brazilian policymakers, researchers, and civil society are debating how AI infrastructure can be developed and regulated to avoid reproducing global inequalities in data use, labor exploitation, and value capture.
Unlike the predominant Silicon Valley focus on AI performance, deployment speed, and technical risks, Brazil’s discourse centers on who controls AI infrastructure, who benefits economically, and how AI affects democratic institutions. The ongoing legislative process around Brazil’s Artificial Intelligence Legal Bill (PL 2338/2023) highlights this perspective, proposing a risk-based regulatory framework inspired partly by the European Union. The bill addresses high-risk AI applications, data governance, and accountability, while sparking broader debates on national sovereignty and the structure of AI markets.
Control and Value Capture in AI Infrastructure
Brazilian users contribute significant data that feed global AI systems, yet decision-making about that data and associated profits predominantly occur in the United States and China. Key elements of AI infrastructure—including cloud computing, specialized hardware, and capital—are controlled by a handful of foreign corporations. This concentration extends to the labor behind AI, where content moderation and data-labeling jobs, often located in Brazil and other developing countries, involve exposure to harmful material but offer limited economic returns to local workers.
The uneven distribution continues in environmental and resource costs. Brazil, particularly through its Amazon region, provides minerals, energy, and labor critical to AI systems. Still, most economic benefits are captured abroad, while local communities bear social and ecological harms. This model underscores how AI perpetuates existing global economic inequalities between developed “core” countries and developing “peripheral” economies.
Implications for Democracy and Market Regulation
The growing concentration of AI system control in a few corporations carries political implications, influencing information flows, public infrastructure, and democratic processes. In Brazil’s current polarized electoral context, AI-driven distribution of information poses risks of manipulation and institutional strain. Efforts to regulate AI often focus on technical fixes rather than addressing power dynamics embedded in infrastructure ownership and control.
Emerging debates at institutions like the World Trade Organization also indicate potential constraints on developing countries’ policy space concerning data governance and AI regulation, raising stakes for national autonomy in the technology sector. Brazil’s legislative initiatives and public discussions reflect attempts to assert greater sovereignty and build local technological capacity, rather than merely adapting to externally-developed AI models.
Why it matters
Brazil’s engagement with AI governance offers a critical test case for how developing countries can influence the global digital economy’s structure and address inequalities tied to AI infrastructure and labor. As AI increasingly shapes economic and political power, the decisions nations make on regulation and infrastructure investment will affect who controls AI’s benefits and risks worldwide.
For global technology companies and policymakers, Brazil’s approach signals the growing importance of regulatory frameworks that go beyond competition and technical performance, emphasizing fairness, sovereignty, and sustainable development. These trends could reshape AI markets and democratic governance, requiring broader cooperation and accountability in the global AI ecosystem.
Sources
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