Country Overview
Brazil's comprehensive AI bill, PL 2338/2023, has been working through Congress since May 2023. The Senate approved a substitute text in December 2024, and as of mid-2026 it remains pending in the Chamber of Deputies, with amendments still being negotiated — biometric surveillance carve-outs have been widely reported as one sticking point, alongside broader disagreements over balancing rights protections with innovation. A Chamber of Deputies plenary vote had been scheduled for May 27, 2026, following rapporteur Deputy Aguinaldo Ribeiro's report presented on May 19, 2026, but that vote was postponed after Chamber President Hugo Motta said the text needed to be aligned with the Senate's version first. The bill did not reach a floor vote before the Chamber's mid-year recess; parliamentary-advisory body DIAP has reported that a plenary vote is now expected only toward the end of the 2026 legislative year (around December), and enforcement provisions would likely not take effect until 2027 even if passed.
The bill centres enforcement on ANPD, Brazil's data protection authority, using a risk-based framework similar in spirit to the EU AI Act. Alongside the legislation, the government's Brazilian AI Plan (PBIA) runs across five axes — infrastructure, training and capacity, public-service improvement, business innovation, and regulation and governance support — and a related IA² programme supports AI-related startups and research projects, though the exact cumulative scale of that support could not be independently confirmed. Brazilian universities and institutions also contributed to Latam-GPT, an open large language model for Latin America coordinated by Chile's CENIA and launched in February 2026 — a regional 'sovereign AI' effort in which Brazil participates rather than leads.
At a Glance
Overall AI policy direction
Comprehensive AI bill pending final passage
2
Major AI companies
1
Research institutions
2
Live debates
- Latest development
- August 20, 2026
- Regulatory approach
- Risk-based framework (PL 2338), enforcement centred on ANPD; not yet passed
- Major AI companies
- Blip, QI Tech
- Major cloud providers
- AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud
- Leading research institutions
- C4AI (Center for Artificial Intelligence)
- Key ministries
- ANPD, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI)
- Government involvement
- Rising — comprehensive risk-based bill advancing through Congress plus an active national AI plan
- Industrial strategy
- Brazilian AI Plan (PBIA) across five axes, including an IA² programme supporting AI startups and research projects (exact cumulative scale not independently verified)
- International partnerships
- Regulatory approach modelled in spirit on the EU AI Act's risk-based framework
- Primary policy focus
- Advancing PL 2338 toward passage and resolving outstanding disagreements, including reported biometric surveillance carve-outs
Current Direction
Tightening
Brazil could become one of the few major economies outside the EU with a comprehensive, binding, risk-based AI law if PL 2338 passes — the bill has cleared the Senate, but a Chamber of Deputies vote planned for May 2026 was postponed, and as of early August 2026 a floor vote is reported as unlikely before around December 2026.
Recent Developments
The federal government launched a roughly R$2.3 billion package of new measures under the Brazilian AI Plan (PBIA) centred on technological sovereignty (20 August 2026): a R$1.06 billion FNDCT-funded tender for a 7,200-petaflop (FP16) AI supercomputer at UFRN's science park in Macaíba, operated by LNCC; a planned R$1.2 billion supercomputer in Rio de Janeiro run with China's Huawei and iFlytek from July 2027; and the structuring of a sovereign Brazilian cloud for government data.
2026-08-20With PL 2338's postponed May vote unresolved, parliamentary-advisory body DIAP reports that a Chamber of Deputies floor vote on the AI bill is now expected only toward the end of the 2026 legislative year (around December), pushing binding AI legislation further down the calendar and its enforcement provisions likely into 2027.
A Chamber of Deputies plenary vote on PL 2338 scheduled for May 27, 2026 (following rapporteur Deputy Aguinaldo Ribeiro's report presented May 19, 2026) was postponed; Chamber President Hugo Motta cited the need to align the Chamber's text with the Senate's version first, leaving the bill's path uncertain.
2026-06Latam-GPT, an open large language model for Latin America coordinated by Chile's national AI centre CENIA, is launched with contributions from institutions across the region, including Brazilian universities and civil-society bodies — positioning Brazil as a participant in a regional 'sovereign AI' effort rather than a domestic frontier developer.
2026-02SourceEuronewsSenate-approved substitute text advances PL 2338 to the Chamber of Deputies.
2024-12-10SourceLibrary of Congress
Policy and Regulation
PL 2338/2023 (AI Bill)
Comprehensive risk-based AI bill introduced May 2023; Senate-approved substitute text December 2024; pending in the Chamber of Deputies as of mid-2026. A Chamber vote scheduled for May 27, 2026 was postponed to allow the text to be aligned with the Senate's version, and several issues — including biometric surveillance carve-outs — remain under negotiation. Enforcement would centre on ANPD, Brazil's data protection authority. A separate government-submitted bill addressing a constitutional drafting issue in the Senate text, and proposing a broader institutional architecture, was also introduced in December 2025 and adds further procedural complexity to the bill's path.
Brazilian AI Plan (PBIA)
National AI plan across five axes: infrastructure, training and capacity, public-service improvement, business innovation, and regulation and governance support.
Companion bill on PL 2338 institutional architecture
Submitted by the federal government in December 2025 to fix a constitutional drafting flaw ('vício de iniciativa') in the Senate-passed text of PL 2338. Proposes a National AI System (SIA) with ANPD as the primary sectoral-gap regulator, two advisory bodies ('Cria' and 'Cecia'), and a coordinating council ('CBIA').
Research Ecosystem
Brazilian AI research centres on C4AI (Center for Artificial Intelligence) at the University of São Paulo, backed by FAPESP and IBM and partnered with ITA, PUC-SP and FEI, alongside the government's IA² programme, which supports AI-related startups and research projects — though its cumulative scale (sometimes cited as 127 startups since 2022) could not be independently confirmed.
Major AI Companies
Cloud Infrastructure
- Frontier AI
- Emerging / sovereign models
- Compute
- Large hyperscaler and colocation build-out (e.g. Campinas hub); a ~R$1.8bn PBIA AI supercomputer is planned by 2027
- Chip access
- Import-reliant on foreign GPUs; no domestic advanced-chip fabrication
AWS
Major cloud provider for Brazilian enterprise AI workloads.
Microsoft Azure
Cloud provider with significant Brazilian enterprise integration.
Google Cloud
Cloud provider used across Brazilian research and enterprise AI.
Leading Universities
Think Tanks
Government Institutions
Notable Gaps
Companion legislation on PL 2338's institutional architecture
In December 2025 the federal government submitted a separate bill to fix a constitutional drafting flaw ('vício de iniciativa') in the Senate-passed text of PL 2338. That companion bill proposes a National AI System (SIA) with ANPD as the primary sectoral-gap regulator, two advisory bodies ('Cria' and 'Cecia'), and a coordinating council ('CBIA') — a procedural complication to PL 2338's path to passage not yet reflected on this page.
AI companies and industry ecosystem
Two Brazilian AI-adjacent companies (Blip, QI Tech) have now been added, but this remains a thinner company list than Brazil's tech/fintech sector size would suggest — worth a deeper research pass rather than treated as complete.
Key People
People and Organisations to Follow
Current Debates
SecurityBiometric surveillance carve-outs and other sticking points in PL 2338
Negotiations over how PL 2338 treats biometric surveillance have been widely reported as one sticking point in the bill's path to passage, alongside broader disagreements over balancing rights protections with innovation.
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Biometric surveillance carve-outs and other sticking points in PL 2338
Negotiations over how PL 2338 treats biometric surveillance have been widely reported as one sticking point in the bill's path to passage, alongside broader disagreements over balancing rights protections with innovation.
Law enforcement and security agencies have reportedly pushed for carve-outs allowing continued use of biometric surveillance technologies that the bill's general risk-based framework might otherwise restrict, while civil-liberties groups have opposed broad exemptions, arguing they would undermine core protections for the use case most associated with rights concerns. Some Portuguese-language coverage frames the holdup more generally, describing ongoing political disagreements over how to balance rights protection with innovation rather than a single dominant issue — so the relative weight of the biometric surveillance question specifically is not fully established.
GovernmentWhether PL 2338 can still pass in 2026 after repeated postponements
After years of progress, PL 2338's path to passage has become less certain: a Chamber vote scheduled for May 27, 2026 was postponed, and reporting now points to a floor vote no earlier than around December 2026.
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Whether PL 2338 can still pass in 2026 after repeated postponements
After years of progress, PL 2338's path to passage has become less certain: a Chamber vote scheduled for May 27, 2026 was postponed, and reporting now points to a floor vote no earlier than around December 2026.
The bill has already survived a multi-year process, including Senate approval of a substitute text in December 2024 and a rapporteur's report presented in May 2026. Chamber President Hugo Motta postponed the planned May 27, 2026 vote, citing the need to align the Chamber's text with the Senate's version first; parliamentary-advisory body DIAP subsequently reported that a vote is now expected only toward the end of the 2026 legislative year (around December). Further slippage would not kill the bill outright, but would extend Brazil's current status as one of the few major economies still without comprehensive binding AI legislation. A separate government bill addressing a constitutional drafting flaw in the Senate text, submitted in December 2025, adds further procedural complexity to the timeline.
Knowledge Hub
Official documents
- Brazil Senate advances discussions on bill to regulate AI use— Library of Congress
Academic papers
Sources
Deliberately sourced beyond government publications. The bars below show each category’s actual share of this page’s citations — an internal editorial guideline rather than a rigorously derived target, so treat it as a rough steer, not a precise benchmark.
- Brazil AI regulation: complete analysis 2026Expert commentarynathalycalixto.com2026-05
- Brazil Senate advances AI bill discussionsGovernmentLibrary of Congress2024-12
- C4AI supported by FAPESP, IBM and USP starts operatingResearchFAPESP2026
- PL 2338/2023 official bicameral tracking pageGovernmentCongresso Nacional2026-06
- Startups Brasileiras em 2026: panorama e principais empresasNewsABVCAP2026
- PL 2338/23: Votação do projeto sobre Inteligência Artificial está prevista apenas para dezembroNewsDIAP (Departamento Intersindical de Assessoria Parlamentar)2026-07
- What is Latam-GPT: Latin America's Spanish and Portuguese AI model?NewsEuronews2026-02
- Governo anuncia edital de R$ 1 bi para supercomputadorNewsMobile Time2026-08-20
- Brasil anuncia pacote de R$ 2,5 bilhões para IA e supercomputador no RNNewsOlhar Digital2026-08-20