Brazil has a territorial extent of about 8.5 million km2, making it the fourth largest country in the world, with correspondingly large demands in order to reach all parts of the country. The federal constitutional order is similar to the USA, with 26 states and a Federal District around the national capital, Brasília. The history of academic HPC in Brazil began in 1990, based on the concept of government-funded regional centers open to universities and research institutes, as in Table 1, with seven such centers being established between 1992 and 1997. INPE formally joined the system only in 2002, contributing with its former production machine formerly dedicated to environmental sciences.

Internet technology had already been brought to Brazil by concerted initiatives by state governments in a number of the more populous states, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, coordinated nationally by the federal government through RNP. The first national IP backbone network in Brazil was launched by RNP in 1992 to serve the national academic and research community, and connected 11 cities ¹. Since 1992, the national network run by RNP has evolved through four significant increases in capacity and usually also technology, where the fourth such change was initiated in November, 2005. Table 2 summarizes these changes. It is relevant to discuss here the Project GIGA testbed network (2004-) and the most recent national network upgrade initiated in 2005.