Colombia, as a strategic hub for data centers and artificial intelligence, is no longer a promise for the future but a present reality with already operating world-class infrastructure, international certifications, and a rapidly maturing digital economy. As demand for sovereign cloud services, high-availability data centers, and AI-ready infrastructure accelerates throughout Latin America, Colombia is fast becoming the region’s natural epicenter.
The latest milestone in Colombia’s ascent was achieved just this past December 2025 by global sovereign technology infrastructure provider, Ilkari. Ilkari recently became the first operator in Colombia to receive ICREA Level IV certification for its data center in the Tocancipá Free Trade Zone. This distinction puts Colombia on a short list of countries that can now support mission-critical workloads and artificial intelligence according to the highest global standards.
Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and Artificial Intelligence: Why it matters
Colombia is rising as a strategic hub for data centers and artificial intelligence deployment for several reasons, including technology infrastructure readiness, stable regulatory frameworks, geographic advantages, and available talent. The ICREA Level IV certification proves that Colombia’s data center infrastructure offers sufficient capacity for continuous operations, extreme resilience, and sustained performance in adverse events.
These features make it particularly attractive for financial services, healthcare, and government platforms, as well as hyperscale cloud computing and critical AI workloads. As international enterprises look for new and trustworthy places to host sensitive digital workloads, Colombia is solidifying itself as a credible and competitive alternative to the most established data center markets.
ICREA Level IV: A milestone for Colombia’s data center and critical infrastructure
The International Computer Room Experts Association (ICREA) uses a set of stringent metrics to assess data centers, covering areas from advanced engineering to operational maturity and emergency preparedness. At its highest, Level IV, ICREA certification confirms full redundancy for four key areas: power, cooling, connectivity, and security. This highest level of certification confirms that a data center’s equipment is fully redundant, ensuring that a single failure will not result in downtime.
Colombia is the latest nation to achieve Level IV, with Ilkari’s facility in Tocancipá earning the highest ICREA Certification globally and paving the way for new use cases in Artificial Intelligence (AI). “Artificial intelligence is a workhorse of this new internet, and resilient infrastructure is a prerequisite for this technology to grow,” Ilkari CEO Shane Paterson said. “Countries that can’t give that promise of continuity will be left behind.”
Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and AI: Infrastructure fit for the future
Ilkari’s facility in Tocancipá, Colombia, is particularly well-suited to consolidate the country as a strategic hub for data centers and AI. The data center hosts 308 active racks of IT equipment with expansion underway to reach 548. It offers a total installed power capacity of 3.6 MW, expandable to 7 MW. On the non-technical side, it features 800 square meters of technical space, with room to grow to 1,500 square meters as the company’s modular architecture allows.
Critical data center resources like energy and cooling are typically among the most intensive and expensive in AI deployments. Flexible architectures like the one Ilkari is building out in Colombia with its Tocancipá data center allow these data centers to scale to meet demand with unrivaled density.
Tocancipá: A geostrategically optimal position in Colombia
The Tocancipá Free Trade Zone further fortifies Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and AI. Proximity to the central economic and connectivity hub of Bogotá, along with investment incentives, logistical efficiencies, and expedited import processes for specialized hardware and equipment, are all important characteristics that make this location a perfect fit to operate high-availability facilities.
Hosting data inside Colombian territory also benefits businesses around data sovereignty, regulatory compliance, cybersecurity, and low-latency operations. In the case of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, this value-add is even more important.
Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and AI: Infrastructure, talent, and skills
A key reason Colombia is a strategic hub for data centers and AI is the rare combination of world-class infrastructure and specialized talent. Infrastructure, as is the case with technology certifications like ICREA, is only half the story, with operational maturity and people being decisive elements.
Ilkari in Colombia currently has a team of 32 specialized professionals backed up by global teams and is operating its infrastructure with a multidisciplinary engineering staff that directly manages the data center, offering a higher degree of direct control and reliability over heavily outsourced operations. Colombia is also the location of Ilkari’s Global Technical Operations Center, or GTOC, from which infrastructure operations in other regions are monitored, acting as a regional knowledge center and accelerating the growth of local talent.
Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and AI: The future is artificial intelligence
AI, in particular, is a foundational element in the evolution of Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and AI. Artificial intelligence workloads, specifically those tied to machine learning and neural networks, are well-known for requiring high energy density, advanced cooling, and particularly GPU-based servers. Ilkari already has GPU servers installed and operating in its Colombian facility, enabling the development of AI workloads for local customers.
Future phases will expand the data center’s power capacity in alignment with technology development to continue increasing energy density. R&D and validation will also be supported by Ilkari’s innovation lab in Málaga, Spain, where new architectures are prototyped and developed for deployment to meet specific requirements of clients.
Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers: A growing sector
Colombia’s data center market dynamics are a key part of the story. This is a market that, according to market research, will grow from USD 81 million in 2024 to over USD 300 million in 2030, with compound annual growth of nearly 28% over this period. This growth will be led by accelerating cloud adoption, artificial intelligence development, and national digital transformation strategies.
Ilkari aims to grow along with the sector, playing a supporting role for not only end users but also for system integrators and other partners with whom the company can adapt its services to the requirements of an ever-changing market.
Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers: Beyond ICREA
Level IV is only the most recent of certifications acquired by Ilkari to reinforce its presence as a benchmark for Colombia and Latin America as a strategic hub for data centers and mission-critical workloads. In this regard, Ilkari has recently earned certifications like DCOS Maturity Level 4, TIA-942-C Rated 3, and SS 564 Green Data Centre as part of its commitment to world-class, sustainable, and efficient infrastructure.
Colombia is a digital export hub for Latin America
Colombia is a strategic hub for data centers, critical infrastructure, and Artificial Intelligence, which are key trends in this industry. With world-class and sovereign technology infrastructure, skilled talent, and a rapidly accelerating investment cycle, Colombia as a strategic hub for data centers and artificial intelligence is no longer a slogan for the future but a present and growing reality that Colombia is fast defining as part of its own economic narrative.