CGEE highlights the strategic role of industrial AI for Brazilian productive development.

The Center for Management and Strategic Studies (CGEE) participated, this Wednesday (14), in the EU-Brazil Business Dialogue – Industrial AI: The New Investment Frontier in Brazilian Industry , held at the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation (FFHC), in São Paulo. The meeting brought together representatives from the productive sector, research institutions, international organizations, technology companies and funding agents to discuss the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI) applied to Brazilian industry.

Representing CGEE, the Director of Strategic Projects and International Relations, Caetano Penna, presented the lecture “Industrial AI and the New Frontier of Productivity in Brazil: stack, scale, sovereignty” , in which he addressed the structural challenges to consolidating industrial AI as a vector of productive transformation in the country.

According to Penna, the main challenge for Brazil lies not only in the availability of technologies, but also in the capacity to articulate different dimensions of the technological and productive ecosystem. These include computational infrastructure, mechanisms for technological diffusion, financing instruments, and productive integration on a large scale, especially geared towards small and medium-sized enterprises.

In this context, the director of CGEE presented the Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Plan (PBIA) as the first coordinated public policy initiative aimed at articulating these dimensions, focusing on increasing productivity, industrial competitiveness, and Brazilian technological sovereignty.

Caetano Penna also highlighted the strategic role of the PBIA as an instrument of industrial and technological policy aimed at mobilizing national capabilities. The plan foresees investments of R$ 23.03 billion between 2024 and 2028, distributed across 54 structuring actions organized into five interconnected axes.

The largest share of resources, corresponding to R$ 13.79 billion (59.9%), will be allocated to the business innovation and industry axis, considered central to the consolidation of industrial AI in Brazil. Another R$ 5.79 billion (25.2%) will be directed to infrastructure and research & development. The public services and training axes will receive R$ 1.76 billion (7.6%) and R$ 1.15 billion (5.0%), respectively. The plan also includes resources for regulation and governance, in addition to R$ 435 million allocated to actions with immediate impact.

During the meeting, CGEE also presented data from the study "The Brazilian Panorama of Science, Technology and Innovation in Artificial Intelligence ," prepared by the Center's Digital Technologies Observatory (OTD), in partnership with the Netherlands Innovation Network, which maps the Brazilian scientific, technological and productive infrastructure in the field of artificial intelligence.

According to the survey, Brazil currently has 144 AI research units, including 110 research centers and 13 Applied Research Centers (CPAs), consolidating itself as one of the main artificial intelligence hubs in Latin America. The study also points out that industry and manufacturing currently represent the main field of application of AI in the country, with 30 units dedicated to the sector.

The data presented also shows that Brazil accounts for 1.8% of global academic production in artificial intelligence, leading Latin American scientific production in the field. The country registers approximately 39,500 scientific articles on AI indexed in the Web of Science and trains approximately 3,200 PhDs per year in topics related to the sector, equivalent to 6.9% of theses defended nationally. The survey also highlights the strong international insertion of Brazilian research, with approximately 50% of scientific production developed in co-authorship with institutions from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and France.

In conclusion, Penna emphasized that Brazil possesses large-scale industrial demand, installed scientific capacity, research infrastructure, and public policy instruments capable of supporting long-term international cooperation in the field of industrial AI. In this context, he presented the PBIA (Brazilian Program for Industrial AI) as a structuring instrument to expand the country's integration into global innovation chains and strengthen Brazilian technological sovereignty.

"Brazil has the capacity and brings it to the table. This is evident in the PBIA figures and the CGEE evidence. The question is how to structure entry into this ecosystem to build capacity, and not just buy it," he emphasized.

At the close of the presentation, the director of CGEE highlighted that the business sector's interest in understanding how artificial intelligence can boost industrial productivity needs to be linked to a national technological development strategy. According to Penna, in addition to discussing how AI can transform industry, it is essential to debate how industry itself can contribute to advancing Brazil's ambitions in technological sovereignty.

Event - The EU-Brazil Business Dialogue was part of the parallel programming of São Paulo Innovation Week 2026 and aimed to bring together Brazilian and European companies, financial institutions, research centers and public policy makers to stimulate investments, technological partnerships and industrial digitization initiatives focused on productivity, innovation and decarbonization of the economy.

In addition to the participation of CGEE, the event included representatives from the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation (FFHC), the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp), the Delegation of the European Union in Brazil, ApexBrasil, and the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI). Companies and institutions such as Ericsson, Siemens, Vale, Gerdau, Bosch, Embraer, WEG, Stellantis, and Schneider Electric also participated, as well as agents linked to financing, innovation, and the digital transformation of industry.