The dream of getting a $1 million investment from Nvidia didn’t last long for Nuevo León. The tech giant denied this Wednesday afternoon that it plans to make financial investments in the northern state, as Governor Samuel Garcia had previously suggested. “It has become clear that Nvidia will not make any financial investments in Nuevo León. The company’s support for digital transformation and technological advancement in Latin America is based solely on cooperation, research and talent development efforts,” the company said in its positioning.
The company was forced to make this statement after Garcia announced at an event in Mexico City attended by more than 1,000 people that NVIDIA would spend $1 billion to build a data center in the state. “NVIDIA has already made all the preparations to carry out the land and investments. We hope that future industries such as chips, semiconductors, robotics and, of course, artificial intelligence will arrive in Nuevo León,” García announced this Wednesday at a corporate event in Mexico City.
Garcia’s elation over Nvidia’s estimated $1 million expenditure was accompanied by several messages and videos on his social networks: “Nvidia, the most important software and artificial intelligence company, is coming to our country with an investment of $1 billion. They are going to build Mexico’s first artificial intelligence green data center, no more, no less. Naturally, it will be in Nuevo León,” he wrote on the social network X.
Following Nvidia’s denial, the Nuevo León state government’s public relations team was called in to justify the governor’s announcement. The state team reported that a $1 billion investment is coming to Nuevo Leon, but it will be a company called Cipre Holdings that will build the data center and enable it with servers, semiconductors and Nvidia technology. The Garcia administration created the Undersecretary of Artificial Intelligence and Investment with a budget of P500 million to focus on attracting technology investment.
This is not the first time Nuevo León’s governor has rushed to announce a multi-million dollar investment. In March 2023, Garcia announced that the state would become the headquarters for Mexico’s first Tesla megaplant. The electric vehicle factory will be located in the city of Santa Catarina, with an investment of more than $5 billion and the creation of 7,000 direct jobs. At the time, Governor Movimiento Ciudadano said the landing of Tesla, owned by mogul Elon Musk, would transform his territory into a “hub” for electromobility. But more than two years later, the 1,000-hectare site in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains remains deserted. Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House and his protectionist policies, combined with Tesla’s internal problems, halted this ambitious project. deadlock Undefined.