Crusoe, Araico Plan 106 MW AI Data Center Beside Paraguay's Itaipú Dam

Why the substation matters

The location is the point of the deal. A site next to a large hydroelectric substation can shorten the wait for a grid connection, a constraint that has delayed data-center projects in other markets. Crusoe frames it as its energy-first strategy: put compute where power is already abundant. Voltgrid has covered the same pattern in Polar and Crusoe's liquid-cooled Norway plan, which also leans on hydropower, but at 40 MW rather than 106 MW.

The two figures should not be read as one number. The 106 MW is described as the capacity the project can scale to, and the roughly 280 MW is a long-term option. Neither is capacity that exists or is under construction today. Crusoe's statement also does not say whether the figures count critical IT load only or total site power.

Government backing

Paraguay's President Santiago Peña said in Crusoe's statement that the partnership brings jobs, investment and technology to the country. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who was leading a U.S. business delegation in Paraguay when the agreement was signed, said the project has the potential to be the largest private foreign investment in Paraguayan history.

That is Landau's assessment of potential, not a disclosed figure. Crusoe's release gives no capex, no GPU count and no named tenant, and none of the reports reviewed by Voltgrid state them. Developing Telecoms, which reported the news on Oct. 23, repeats the same capacity and timing figures.

What is not confirmed yet

Several details are still open. Crusoe has not published the size of the mid-2027 first phase, the investment, the power purchase terms with Paraguay's utilities, or the chips it will install. It also has not said when the later phases toward 106 MW and 280 MW would be built. Those answers will decide whether Itaipú-backed compute becomes a repeatable template for Crusoe or a single showcase site.