Google Engineering Centre in São Paulo: AI and Security

Google's engineering centre in São Paulo is no longer a project but an address: the company inaugurated on 27 May 2026 its second engineering base in Brazil, located inside the Institute for Technological Research (IPT) at the University City of USP. The unit is born with a clear mission — to protect users, combat fraud and develop artificial intelligence applied to privacy and accessibility. In this guide, I separate what really matters for those working with technology in the country.

TL;DR

Google's engineering centre in São Paulo houses up to 400 employees and starts operating in July 2026.

It is Google's second engineering centre in Brazil — the first is in Belo Horizonte, with about 20 years of operation.

It concentrates three fronts: the first Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC) in Latin America, the first Accessibility Discovery Center (ADC) in the region, and the reopening of Google Campus for AI-First startups.

Technical focus: digital security, privacy, abuse prevention and infrastructure for AI agents.

Brazil has become a laboratory because it combines high smartphone adoption, sophisticated financial systems and a complex fraud environment.

What changes with Google's engineering centre in São Paulo

The inauguration took place at the Adriano Marchini building, inside the IPT campus, and was attended by Mayor Ricardo Nunes and the State Secretary of Science and Innovation, Vahan Agopyan, representing Governor Tarcísio de Freitas. The partnership between Google, IPT and the Government of São Paulo was formalised in February 2024, within the IPT Open programme, and took more than two years to deliver the space.

The number that sums up the ambition is straightforward: capacity for 400 employees. To put the leap into perspective, Google started in Brazil in 2005 with 12 engineers. Today there are over 400 engineers across both bases and more than 2,000 employees in total in the country. This is not a commercial branch — it is cutting-edge product development being written from São Paulo.

Fábio Coelho, President of Google Brazil, summed up the tone of the ceremony: "The opening of our Engineering Centre in São Paulo is a true celebration of the positive impact we have generated in Brazil over the last 20 years." Bruno Pôssas, VP of Global Engineering for Google Search, called the city "a breeding ground for engineering talent" — and it is exactly that talent that the company wants to retain without having to export it.

GSEC: the first Google Safety Engineering Center in Latin America

The centre of gravity of the new operation is the Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC), the first in Latin America. GSEC is the acronym for the global hubs that Google dedicates exclusively to user security and privacy. Before this one, there were units in Munich, Dublin and other strategic locations. Bringing one to São Paulo puts Brazil on the map of those who decide how scams, malware and abuses are combated on the platform.

In practice, the GSEC brings together engineers who work on fraud detection, phishing protection, account security and online threat mitigation. It is the type of team that builds the brakes that appear on Android and Chrome when something smells like a bank scam — a topic I have already covered in depth in the analysis of Android 17's AI and security news.

Why security and AI go hand in hand here

It is no coincidence that the centre mixes security with artificial intelligence. The frauds of 2026 are generated by AI — voice deepfakes, cloned messages, fake websites set up in minutes. The defence needs to run on the same ground: models that classify risk in real time, on-device whenever possible, without sending sensitive data to the cloud. This is the kind of problem that the São Paulo GSEC was set up to solve.

Why Brazil became a digital security laboratory

The choice of Brazil is not a courtesy. Bruno Possas, VP of Engineering, was transparent: problems "experienced with intensity in Brazil" help guide protection products for markets with similar challenges. In other words: if the defence can withstand the Brazilian ecosystem, it can withstand almost anywhere.

Three characteristics make the country a unique testing ground:

Massive smartphone adoption — a large part of the population accesses digital services exclusively via mobile phone.
Advanced financial system — Pix popularised instant transfers, which also attracted an equally instant scam industry.
Sophisticated fraud environment — social engineering at scale, with gangs that have professionalised credential theft.

Those who develop software in the country know this pressure. The threats are not limited to the end user: the development chain itself has become a target, as shown by the case of GitHub invaded by a malicious VS Code extension. A security centre operating from here responds to this scenario with people who live the problem, not who read about it in a report.

Accessibility Discovery Center: assistive technology at the centre of the table

The second front is the Accessibility Discovery Center (ADC), also the first in Latin America. It is a space dedicated to developing and testing assistive technologies in direct collaboration with the community of people with disabilities. Instead of treating accessibility as a checklist item at the end of the project, the ADC puts real users at the beginning — true participatory design.

This tends to influence features that reach everyone: more accurate automatic captions, smoother screen reading, voice control that understands Brazilian accents. For those building digital products, it is a practical reminder that well-done accessibility improves the overall experience — not just meets a legal requirement.

Google Campus reopened: the bet on AI-First startups

The third piece is the reopening of Google Campus, the startup support space. The planned capacity is about 120 people per week, and the declared focus is on AI-First companies — startups that are born with artificial intelligence at the core of the product, not as an adornment. The proposal is to connect entrepreneurs, universities and large companies at the same address.

For the Brazilian ecosystem, this means access to infrastructure, mentoring and proximity to Google engineers without needing a ticket to Silicon Valley. Those who follow the company's AI movement — which I detailed in the summary of Google I/O 2026 for Brazilian companies — see here the local bridge between frontier research and the business born around the corner.

Two poles: Belo Horizonte and São Paulo divide Google's engineering in Brazil

With the opening in São Paulo, Google now operates its Brazilian engineering in two complementary poles. Belo Horizonte, active for about 20 years, has historically concentrated teams related to search, infrastructure and large-scale products. São Paulo is born with a different and more specialised focus: security, privacy, accessibility and the technical base for the AI agents that Google has been pushing to the centre of its strategy.

This division is not cosmetic. Maintaining two centres with distinct focuses reduces concentration risk and brings each team closer to the ecosystem it serves. In São Paulo, proximity to the financial system, fintechs and the country's largest fraud park gives the GSEC a constant flow of real cases to study. It is security engineering fed by field data, not laboratory simulation.

For the Brazilian professional, the reading is encouraging. Until recently, anyone wanting to work on frontier problems in security or AI almost always had to emigrate. Now there is a local path: two engineering centres, senior positions and the chance to write code that runs for billions of users without leaving the Brasília time zone. Add to that the Google Campus receiving startups every week and you have a complete circuit — from the large company that sets the standard to the startup testing hypotheses — operating within the same university campus. It is this densification that usually turns a city into a real technology hub, not just a destination for a nice office.

The building: a historic IPT revamped with sustainability

It is worth noting the physical detail, because it says something about the intention. The Adriano Marchini building is a construction from the 1940s that underwent a heavy renovation. The renovation prioritised sustainability: solar panels, natural ventilation and lighting, rainwater reuse and a thermal design that eliminates the need for air conditioning for more than 60% of the year.

Reusing a historic building inside a public university, instead of erecting a new glass tower, sends a message: the operation wants to be glued to academia and talent formation, not isolated in a corporate condominium. For USP and IPT, it is an injection of technological relevance on campus.

What changes for Brazilian companies and developers

Out with the talk, in with the concrete. See what the arrival of the centre tends to unlock:

More senior engineering positions — security and AI teams pay well and raise the local market.
Protection products designed for Brazil — defences calibrated for Pix, boleto and message-based scams, not just the North American standard.
Higher accessibility standard — when Google tests assistive technology here, the bar rises for the entire sector.
Pipeline for AI startups — the Campus becomes a gateway for funding, partnership and technical validation.
Talent that stays — Brazilian engineer with frontier problems to solve without moving country.

For software developers, the immediate lesson is one of posture: security and AI have stopped being separate departments. The attacker uses AI, the defender uses AI, and those who ignore this remain exposed — something that applies as much to a bank as to the service agent that many companies are putting on WhatsApp, as discussed in what AI agents change for companies.

Summary of numbers and components

Item	Detail
Inauguration	27 May 2026
Start of operations	July 2026
Location	Adriano Marchini Building, IPT, University City (USP)
Capacity	Up to 400 employees
Position	2nd Google engineering centre in Brazil (1st in Belo Horizonte)
GSEC	1st Google Safety Engineering Center in Latin America
ADC	1st Accessibility Discovery Center in the region
Google Campus	~120 people/week, focus on AI-First startups
Programme	IPT Open (partnership formalised in February 2024)

Conclusion: what to watch from July

Google's engineering centre in São Paulo is not just new square metres — it is a signal that Brazil has moved from the position of consumer market to co-author of the security and AI that the world will use. Real operations begin in July 2026, and that is when we can measure whether the positions, partnerships with startups and products calibrated for the country appear as promised.

At Agathas Web, we follow this movement closely because it changes the ground on which we build solutions every day. If your company is thinking about adopting AI responsibly — without opening a security flank — this is the time to plan the right architecture, not to run after the incident. Discover how we apply AI with security in our products and use Google's arrival in Brazil as the push to professionalise your own digital strategy.