Between billion-dollar licenses and international clouds: a systematic mapping of Brazilian public sector contracts with international technology suppliers

Abstract

This report systematizes, for the first time, data from five Brazilian public technology contracting databases: Comprasnet, Portal Nacional de Compras Públicas (PNCP), Painel de Preços (Services), Painel de Preços (Materials) and Solutions Catalog Reports, with the aim of mapping Brazilian public sector’s spending patterns on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) between 2014 and 2025. We identified a base value of R$ 23,001,418,740.04 (or R$ 23 billion, nominal value, without adjusting for inflation) in public contracts related to the area, observing Comprasnet (2014–2022) and PNCP (2023–June/2025), without considering overlaps or values that may be present in other platforms. In addition, according to data from the Painel de Preços, in the last year alone, the sum of services and technological materials of foreign software and products totals more than R$ 10,358,764,380.55 (or R$ 10.36 billion). Moving on to segregated data, in the last 2 and a half years (January 2023 and June 2025) the public sector has hired around R$ 5,97 billion in software licenses, R$ 9 billion in cloud computing solutions and R$ 1.91 billion in digital security software and services. These expenses are mostly concentrated in large global suppliers, as only Microsoft appears in contracts worth R$ 3.27 billion on Comprasnet, being R$ 1.65 billion in the first half of 2025 alone. Already in the PNCP, Oracle (R$ 1.02 billion), Google (R$ 938 million) and Red at (R$ 909 million) lead the hiring processes initiated only in the last three and a half years. More than just measuring figures, the report reveals that the current model of public technology procurement deepens Brazil’s dependence on foreign corporations, undermining its technological autonomy and hindering the construction of a national development project grounded in digital sovereignty.