On May 20th, the CCIT welcomes Guilherme Cavalcante and Priscila Santos da Costa to give a talk titled "The Amazon as a technology incubator: AI, smart city, and a new technopolitical regime in Canaã dos Carajás."

Guilherme Cavalcante Silva (he/him) is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Program of Science & Technology Studies at York University, Canada, but is currently visiting at the University of Geneva. His current research focuses on the intersections between science and technology policy and development frameworks in Latin America, with focus on Brazil.

Priscila is an Assistant Professor here at ITU. She is part of the Amazônia 4.0 project, where she studies how how green transitions can be implemented in practice and what role(s) new technologies may play in this regard.


Abstract:

Technocratic imaginaries of the Amazon are not new, as the use and appropriation of technologies have long been attached to both the economic exploration of the area and the idea of "modernizing" Brazil. However, the connection between these imaginaries and green growth and sustainability has been a more recent development in the area. The presentation will reflect the construction of the Brazilian Amazon as a "connected" and "innovation-oriented" region through the encounter between two technological visions: the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the focus on smart cities as a way of building a strong technological brand for Brazil on one side, and the small city of Canaã dos Carajás in the State of Pará, 750km away from Belém, home to COP30 in 2025, and home to the world’s largest iron ore mine. The 30-year-old city that saw its population and GDP per capita explode after the discovery of the mine is home to one of the first AI-oriented smart cities developments in Brazil. By tracing the construction of Canaã dos Carajás as a smart city and the AI imaginaries attached to public initiatives in the country, the paper uncovers the narratives that make up the transformation of the Amazon into a technological incubator.