Mexico's Technological Crossroads: Capitalizing on AI Assembly to Build Its Own Software Industry
Mexico's Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, held a strategic meeting with Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, during the G20 Innovation Ministers' Summit in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, held on September 2. In this meeting, both leaders agreed to organize a future visit by Huang to Mexico with the aim of accelerating the development of capabilities, the creation of companies, and the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in the national territory.
Advanced Manufacturing and Tech Diplomacy
Although a definitive date for the visit or a direct investment amount derived from this dialogue has not yet been announced, Huang highlighted that part of Nvidia's AI supercomputers are already being built in Mexico. This physical capacity is supported by the alliance between Nvidia and Foxconn, a company that manufactures and tests systems based on the Blackwell architecture in facilities in the United States, Taiwan, and Mexico, using the Omniverse platform with digital twins to optimize plants.
The diplomatic agenda for technology of the Ministry of Economy also included parallel meetings with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, executives from Anthropic, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen. During the G20 proceedings, Ebrard equated the economic impact of AI with the historical arrival of electricity to industry.
The Boom of Data Centers in National Territory
The interest in developing the algorithmic economy coincides with a massive flow of private capital focused on physical storage and computing infrastructure in Mexico:
- CloudHQ: Announced in September 2025 an investment of 4.8 billion dollars for the construction of six data centers in Querétaro, projecting 7,200 construction jobs and 900 permanent ones.
- Flex: Reported in April 2026 an injection of 1 billion dollars between 2026 and 2028 for AI data center infrastructure in Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, and Ciudad Juárez, with more than 5,000 direct jobs foreseen.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): Maintains an announced investment portfolio of 5 billion dollars to expand its technological and cloud presence in the country.
- Geographic Concentration: The state of Querétaro has consolidated as the central hub of the sector, housing approximately 80% of the data centers installed in Mexico.
Catalysts for a Startup and IP Ecosystem
To transform the manufacturing base and data centers into Mexican software companies, the sector needs to address gaps in specialized talent, financing, energy, and access to computing infrastructure. In the area of human and commercial capital, initiatives such as InnovaFest Querétaro have begun to connect more than 80 investment funds with workshops taught by Nvidia, Meta, AWS, and KIO to train SMEs in inventory optimization, sales forecasting, and fraud prevention.
Regarding intellectual property, reforms within the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) allowed for a nearly 50% increase in the granting of new patents between 2024 and 2025. Likewise, Mexico's exit in 2026 from the priority watch list of the U.S. Special 301 report strengthens conditions for attracting investment.
From next+, the approach between the Mexican government and Nvidia exposes the great paradox of technological development in the region. Mexico is already a relevant player in the assembly of advanced hardware such as Nvidia's Blackwell architecture and in attracting more than $10.8 billion in data center infrastructure from firms like CloudHQ, Flex, and AWS. However, hosting servers and assembling components does not, by itself, guarantee the creation of its own wealth. The real challenge for economic policy lies in leveraging this physical infrastructure to train specialized engineers and create local startups that generate patents, vertical business models, and AI solutions for SMEs, moving from being simple computing maquiladoras to producers of intellectual property exportable to the world.