| Start Campus
Start Campus
Key team members:
Daniela Silva e Sousa, General Counsel
Team size: 5
Major legal advisors: PLMJ
What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?
Start Campus is spearheading the development of the SINES Data Campus, a transformative €8.5bn privately funded initiative, poised to become Europe’s largest and most sustainable AI-ready data centre ecosystem. Located in Sines, Portugal, the 1.2-gigawatt (GW) campus is designed to support AI, cloud, and high-performance computing workloads. The project is backed by U.S. investment fund Davidson Kempner and Britain’s Pioneer Point Partners, positioning Portugal as a global leader in digital infrastructure.
The first facility, SIN01, a 26-megawatt (MW) data centre, commenced operations in late 2024, nearly doubling the country’s total data centre capacity. The campus is powered entirely by renewable energy and utilises sustainable seawater cooling, achieving a design Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.1 without consuming water.
Beyond the direct investment, Start Campus anticipates that its customers will invest multiples of that amount in infrastructure and technology deployments on-site, potentially bringing the total associated investment to over €30bn over the project’s lifetime. This strategic development is expected to generate up to 1,200 direct and 9,000 indirect jobs, bolstering the local economy and reinforcing Portugal’s position as a strategic data hub due to Sines’ favourable geographical location. With its advanced infrastructure and commitment to sustainability, the SINES Data Campus is set to play a pivotal role in Europe’s AI and overall digital future.
The legal team of Start Campus supports all lines of business of this paramount investment in Portugal.
What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?
A Project of this magnitude that needs input from many different areas of the law (financing, licensing, environmental permitting, real estate, corporate structuring, EPCs), would be very difficult to develop fully in-house and the sizing of such an internal team would need to be very significant. In such a project, where timelines and corresponding workloads are managed taking into consideration the different stages of the development, the most efficient structure is to use significant support from external law firms. Start Campus has partnered with PLMJ from the beginning and their involvement and knowledge of the project is very helpful. This is a very demanding project, with several challenges, such as the investment numbers and the innovative nature of the project. Start Campus and external law firms collaborate on overcoming these hurdles.
How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company? Can you share an example of a recent legal-led initiative that had a significant impact?
The legal team has been embedded in every aspect of the company’s operations from the outset, playing a critical role throughout the natural challenges of developing a project of this scale and significance. Beyond defining boundaries and ensuring compliance, legal also helps shape outcomes by providing clarity and guidance. Often, it serves as a catalyst for strategic discussions, highlighting how key decisions may influence the broader business landscape.
What are some of the biggest legal or regulatory challenges currently facing your industry, and how is your team preparing to address them?
The data centre industry is fairly new in our country, which means new processes and discussions are being held to accommodate such an industry. The major challenges most definitely result from the size of the project and the different combination of factors that are necessary to develop such a large and significant investment.
"As the General Counsel of the promoter and developer of the largest and most innovative AI-ready data centre project in Europe, Daniela is a professional who is cherished by everyone, with solid knowledge of the real estate and banking sectors. Her involvement in Start Campus’ data centre project has allowed the team to unlock its tremendous potential, achieving real day-to-day project management success, and she plays a vital part in it. Daniela maintains expertise in a wide variety of legal sectors and oversees a young and talented team that touches many legal spaces, such as Corporate, Regulatory, Finance, Construction, Contracts, and Litigation. The team is very dedicated and available, and is very practical in its work, never losing focus on innovation. They have been involved in the full gamut of legal matters within the Start Campus project for more than a year and has witnessed some of the most important milestones for the groundbreaking Sines 4.0 Project. As head of legal, Daniela transcends a merely legal function and takes an active role in the company's strategy. She is proactive, responsive, and commercially focused, assisting Start Campus and its shareholders to complete their most complex transactions and requests efficiently and expertly. Working closely with the administration and other executive departments, she directly participates in strategic decision-making. Her ability to integrate the legal department into the corporate strategy is also highly valued. Daniela also plays a very important role in acting as a liaison between the Portuguese lawyers acting on behalf of Start Campus in the litigation matters pending before the Portuguese Criminal Courts and the Portuguese and international lawyers acting on behalf of Start Campus' shareholders. Daniela's expertise and communication skills are key to ensuring an open line of communication and that the best interests of all parties involved are covered. In a context of constant regulatory changes and economic challenges, the team has demonstrated remarkable adaptability and resilience, having quickly adapted to new legal frameworks, and implement innovative solutions in response to unexpected challenges. "