Uruguay has signed a $5.7 billion agreement with Spanish developer Solaria Energía y Medio Ambiente to build 500MW of solar-powered data center capacity. President Yamandú Orsi signed the deal earlier this week.

The numbers break down cleanly. The data centers themselves account for $5.5bn of the total, with the associated solar generation costing roughly $200 million. That's about $11 million per megawatt of IT capacity — a figure that tells you most of the spend is in the halls, not the panels.

What does the deal actually contain?

The project runs in two phases:

• Phase one: a 200MW data center plus a 350MW solar project, scheduled for completion in 2029.
• Phase two: an additional 300MW of data center capacity, with an option to expand the solar footprint.

The facilities will be spread across three departments: Canelones, San José, and Florida. Everything operates under Uruguay's free zone regime — the tax and customs framework the country has used for decades to pull investment into industrial projects.

The jobs picture is concrete too. Solaria and the government expect 3,100 construction jobs during the build, and 1,500 permanent positions once the data centers and solar farm are complete. For context, 1,500 permanent roles is comparable to a mid-sized industrial plant's payroll — significant for Uruguay's interior, where the facilities will sit.

Energy and mining minister Fernanda Cardona called it "a national project, from which all parties will benefit," citing the quantity and quality of jobs generated outside the capital and the fact that "it represents positive capital accumulation."

"This will generate a value chain, jobs, and knowledge for our entire population, and will reaffirm Uruguay as a digital hub, combining renewable energy with network capabilities, human talent, and the digital economy," Cardona said.

Why Solaria, and why Uruguay?

Solaria isn't a newcomer here. The company has operated in Uruguay for nearly ten years, running two solar plants in Río Negro and Soriano with a combined 19MW. The new solar component — 350MW in phase one alone — represents an eighteenfold jump on its existing footprint in the country.

Founded in 2002, Solaria runs dozens of solar installations across Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Uruguay. It holds around 1.6GW of installed solar capacity, has more than 1.4GW under construction, and is also developing wind and battery storage projects. Its targets: 14GW by 2028 and 18GW by 2030.

The data center side is newer but moving fast:

• Solaria entered the market last year with the formation of Solaria Data Center, securing connection requests for more than 150MW from Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica.
• In March, Red Eléctrica approved 225MW of connections for a planned data center in the Basque Country.
• That same week, Solaria won approval to connect two more data centers totaling 130MW in Madrid.
• In September, it announced a 200MW AI data center with Japanese technology company Datasection, converting its industrial facilities in Puertollano.
• In November, it formally launched a European sustainable data center platform.

Add it up and the Uruguay project roughly matches, in a single country, everything Solaria has lined up in Spain so far.

What changes for the market?

For operators and colocation players watching Latin America, the signal is that Uruguay is positioning itself as a renewable-powered digital hub — a pitch Cardona made explicitly. The country's grid is already heavily renewable, and pairing 500MW of compute with dedicated solar under a free zone structure removes two of the usual constraints: power sourcing and tax friction.

For Solaria's competitors, the move shows the Spanish developer treating data centers not as a side business but as a core growth engine alongside its 18GW renewables pipeline. The 2029 deadline for phase one gives the industry a fixed benchmark: if Uruguay hits it, expect more free-zone deals of this shape in the region.

For now, the paper is signed, the sites are named, and the clock on 2029 is running.