New data center firm OneX has opened its first data center in Brazil.

The company launched its first data center in the city of Ipatinga, located in the Vale do Aço (steel valley) region of Minas Gerais. The facility reportedly has a capacity for one petabyte of storage and 75kW across 355 sqm (3,800 sq ft). The facility has on-site solar panels to contribute towards its energy use.

According to BNAmericas, the company is planning to develop at least five data centers by the end of 2023. The company has a second data center under consideration in Minas Gerais, to be opened in 2022. Another data center is planned for next year and two more for 2023.

Tiago Faria Bicalho, executive director and one of OneX's founding partners, said the company aims to invest up to 75 million reais ($13.2m) in the process, with each development costing around 10-15 million reais ($1.8-2.7m). The company will offer colocation, hosting, and virtual machines (VMs) services.

Bicalho is executive director of Ipatinga-based software development firm Gerenciar Sistemas. The company was hosted in a Microsoft environment, but has repatriated its systems to go into the OneX facility.

“We then bought our first servers and hosted them at an Internet provider here in Vale do Aço. It was then that I found out that we didn't have skilled labor in the region to assemble the servers for me. Besides, there was no physical structure to meet the level of safety and quality I was looking for,” he told BNAmericas. "I thought we should do all our own while also providing services to others. I took the idea to investors, who understood the demand and bet on the project."

A version of this story appeared on our Brazilian edition.