Rio to Test Laser-Based Internet by Taara in City-Wide AI Plan

Nov. 7, 2025 — The City of Rio de Janeiro and Alphabet’s innovation lab dubbed X, the Moonshot Factory, announced a partnership Monday to deploy a wireless optical mesh network, bringing high-speed connectivity to schools, hospitals, and government centers across the city.

The system will be built by Taara, a project that transmits data through beams of light instead of cables. More than 20 optical links will form a mesh of interconnected nodes spanning parts of Rio where broadband access remains unreliable. Each link can transmit data at up to 20 gigabits per second across 20 kilometers, connecting directly into the city’s existing fiber network.

The initiative is part of a wider cooperation agreement between City Hall and the Moonshot Factory brokered by the municipal technology agency IplanRio.

Mayor Eduardo Paes said Rio offered itself as a test site for new technologies addressing urban challenges in connectivity, power, recycling, and building design. “We are starting with four projects … one where we provide high-speed internet without the need for wires,” Paes said.

Taara’s links are expected to serve schools, health clinics, and emergency response systems, forming a rapid-response communications layer for disaster situations. City officials said the project will support Rio’s AI city plan, an initiative to make the municipality a digital innovation hub. 

Taara’s technology has been deployed in more than 20 countries, from dense cities in India to remote Pacific island nations, linking communities where fiber deployment is too costly or dangerous. 

Rio’s rollout will be the company’s first city-scale mesh, intended as a model for how urban centers can expand broadband access without excavation or months of construction.