$38B powers AI and Latin America needs to move
It’s striking that in 2025, while much of Latin America is still debating roadmaps and pilots, in the United States OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, signed today a $38 billion cloud computing agreement with Amazon Web Services. The alliance gives immediate access to hundreds of thousands of next-generation GPUs and reinforces AWS as the go-to provider for large-scale AI workloads. Beyond the headline, the message is clear: global competition is pulling ahead at the pace of those who can finance and operate massive compute infrastructure, not just those with good ideas.
Compared with Latin America’s progress, this should worry us. The 2025 Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index recognizes advances, but also persistent gaps in talent, investment, and governance. There are pioneers like Chile and Uruguay, yet most countries face a shortage of capital for ambitious projects. Meanwhile, the global ecosystem is accelerating every day. In 2024, private AI investment in the United States reached 109.1 billion dollars, a scale that is hard to match without strategy and public-private coordination. If Latin America doesn’t wake up and start training its people, it risks remaining a consumer of technology, not a producer.
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There are positive signs, although still insufficient to close the gap. Brazil, for example, proposed an AI investment plan of roughly 4 billion dollars between 2024 and 2028, focused on infrastructure, companies, and training. A very good initiative, but still far from the size of commitments setting the pace in North America and Europe, where a single corporate contract can exceed an entire national program. The lesson is clear: we need scale, continuity, and execution.
What do we do from here? First, accept that AI is no longer an experiment. It is production. Companies in the region should stop treating AI like a trend and make it part of daily operations with budget, goals, and accountable owners. That means investing in quality data, security, governance, and the right cloud to scale. It also means prioritizing projects with direct impact on revenue or efficiency, like product personalization, automated customer support, and inventory optimization. In parallel, governments can accelerate through innovative public procurement, R&D tax credits, reskilling programs, and regulatory frameworks that provide certainty without stalling innovation. The ILIA itself suggests that where infrastructure, talent, and governance are coordinated, the leap comes faster.
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For Latin American developers this is a warning, and there is still time to learn and specialize, because building with foundation models, mastering data pipelines, understanding MLOps and security, and integrating cloud services is no longer a plus, it is the new standard. Those who can translate business problems into AI-driven solutions will enjoy high employability and international mobility. The rest will be stuck in commoditized tasks. In 2026 we will see more local companies scaling with applied AI, but only if we start now to build hybrid teams across product, data, and operations, and stop experimenting in silos so we can measure real impact on P&L. The window of opportunity is not closed. It is asking for bold decisions, focus, and regional collaboration.
At Square Codex we constantly seek that small percentage of programmers who want to join this new world and are not afraid to learn every day. We identify talent in Costa Rica and across Latin America and connect them with North American companies under staff augmentation models, integrating into clients’ agile processes and adding value from week one. This is not random: we filter with real coding challenges, peer reviews, English assessments, and product interviews, then provide continuous upskilling in applied AI, data, security, and engineering best practices. There is talent in the region, and we can proudly say our teams belong to that group that overcomes any challenge, adapts quickly, and meets objectives. In Latin America we have a major advantage, with creativity and dedication greater than in any other region. Our goal is to lift up our countries while our clients accelerate their roadmaps, improve processes, and reduce risk, supported by new technologies, code copilots, automated testing, CI/CD, and clear communication in the same time zone.
