Milei courts AI data centers with a no-regulation pledge and proposed tax cuts

AI data-center developers facing resistance in the United States and Europe are being courted by Argentina. President Javier Milei is promising a hands-off approach to attract foreign investment, according to new Associated Press reporting. His push combines a pledge not to regulate AI, a proposed tax incentive and meetings with major technology companies.

A tax offer, not an enacted cut

Milei’s proposed incentive would lower corporate income tax from 25% to 15% for projects worth at least $1 billion in AI and other emerging industries. The measure is awaiting Senate approval. It is an offer aimed at attracting large investments, not a tax reduction companies can already count on.

The outreach is reaching technology companies. Visitor logs obtained by AP show representatives of OpenAI, Amazon, Google and Oracle meeting with Milei and his aides in recent months. Foreign Ministry records also show that data-center developer Crusoe sought talks with Argentine energy officials this year about US government-backed investments.

Milei made his no-regulation pledge to the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington in October. But a senior Argentine official, speaking without authorization to brief the media, described a complication: companies are waiting for clearer rules on training AI with copyrighted material and transferring personal data abroad.

We are not going to regulate artificial intelligence

Javier Milei, speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington in October

Patagonia’s power pitch

Patagonia offers physical attractions alongside the policy pitch: open land, cool air, strong winds and gas from the Vaca Muerta shale formation. Green Capital, a Polish renewable-energy company, plans a $3 billion data center there to lease to large technology companies for AI computing. It has not secured a customer.

The project predates the latest reporting on Milei’s campaign. Argentina’s investment-promotion agency backed a presentation of Green Capital’s planned AI hub in July, describing it as being in the early stages of environmental studies and legal and financial structuring. Construction is now not expected to begin until around 2028.

Fourteen landowners have leased a combined 130,000 hectares to Green Capital. Some are sheep farmers seeking another source of income as the wool industry struggles with drought, overgrazing and rising production costs. They expect to keep grazing sheep alongside the proposed campus rather than abandon ranching.

Green Capital says it would generate all its electricity with wind turbines, solar farms and gas-fired generators, rather than strain Argentina’s congested grid. The projected demand is enormous: operating continuously at its planned peak, the campus would consume about 2.7 times Buenos Aires’s entire 2025 electricity use annually, AP calculated.

The local bargain is still unsettled

Provincial officials are counting on investment, highly skilled jobs and a buyer for surplus wind power. Yet environmental studies remain underway and permits are pending. Green Capital has not specified how much water the campus would need or what share of its electricity would come from gas.

The proposed incentives do not require companies to reserve computing capacity for local use or disclose their energy and water consumption. Alan Rocha Varsanyi, a researcher at the environmental group Observatorio Petrolero Sur, argues that the facilities would export computing capacity wherever technology companies need it, rather than strengthen Argentina’s technological independence.

That uncertainty has already generated resistance near the proposed site. In Trelew, a small group has organized online and in the main square under the banner “Trelew Free of Data Centres.” Resident Cristina Gibón told AP that the lack of information leaves her worried about the resources available to future generations.