Q COSTA RICA — Limón could become the site of the Quantum AI Free Zone Campus, a data center complex, the country’s first data center specifically designed for artificial intelligence (AI) and hyperscale computing.
The campus will be built on approximately 42 hectares. Business representatives promoting the initiative presented the proposal to Limón Mayor Ana Matarrita McCalla. According to the mayor, Quantum has been operating in the canton for about a decade in other sectors.
Construction will take place in three phases. The first phase, with a capacity of 50MW, includes the development of two data centers—DC1 and DC2—along with a 230kV electrical substation, water treatment facilities and other supporting infrastructure.
The second phase will add three more buildings—DC3, DC4 and DC5—bringing the campus’s total capacity to 125MW. The final phase will include DC6 and DC7, taking the complex to its planned maximum capacity of 200MW across seven data centers. According to the Limón municipality, the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.
Quantum AI Free Zone Campus is intended to support technologically intensive operations, including artificial intelligence training and inference, GPU cloud services, sovereign computing and high-performance computing. The project will also feature centralized cooling, water treatment and wastewater treatment systems. Its website estimates that the campus will require a water supply of 350 liters per second.
The proposal also calls for the development of protected, redundant connections with the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). These routes would link the campus to the CRIX internet traffic exchange and to the international submarine cable systems serving Limón, including TAM-1, AMX-1 and ARCOS-1. The campus is also expected to have fiber connectivity from multiple providers.
The project would operate under Costa Rica’s free trade zone regime. Potential incentives include exemptions from income tax, customs duties on imported equipment, value-added tax and property tax during the applicable incentive period.
The proposal comes as Costa Rica’s data center industry enters a period of expansion, though existing projects remain considerably smaller than the Quantum AI Free Zone Campus. IFX Networks operates four data centers in the country with a combined capacity of 500 racks and 5MW. The company is evaluating an expansion and the construction of a fifth facility this year as part of a regional investment plan worth more than US$400 million for 2026 and 2027.
In April, Costa Rican company Navégalo received DCOS-3 Tier III certification for its data center in San José, which has an approximate capacity of 5MW.
The sector is also becoming more organized institutionally. In March, the Central American Association of Data Centers and Data Technology (ACEDAC) was established, bringing together companies including Ingenium, Icrea, Edgenet Data Technologies, UnitedTec, Isertec and Grupo UPS.
Separately, the Costa Rican Chamber of Infocommunication and Technology, known as Infocom, recently formed a special commission to coordinate the development of artificial intelligence and data centers in Costa Rica. The organization represents companies such as Claro, Tigo, Liberty, Ufinet and Trans Americas Fiber, and said the commission would operate according to principles of technological neutrality.