A 30-year-old tech bro and his investors want to create a utopian, AI-powered city from scratch in far-flung Uruguay – and the first residents are expected to arrive by the middle of next year, according to the New York-based company behind the project.
Praxis and its CEO Dryden Brown – who claims backers including a fund founded by billionaire Peter Thiel – chose Uruguay “for its natural beauty, political and economic stability,” according to a press release. Brown previously said he wants the city’s architecture to resemble “a fusion of gothic elements and space-age futurism.”
He plans to meet this week with Uruguay’s President Yamandu Orsi while the leader is in the Big Apple for the United Nations General Assembly, according to the New York Times.
The “first phase” of the city is slated to be built inside +Colonia, an existing development near Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay and spearheaded by Eduardo Bastitta, who also serves as an adviser to Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
“The AI industry is building technology that will fundamentally change the role of human labor. We are building a place to explore what comes next,” Brown said in a statement.
“How do people find purpose in this world? How do we turn extraordinary new wealth into prosperity and a civilization worth living in? These are the questions we want to make practical in Uruguay,” Brown added.
While details on the plans are scant, Praxis said it “plans to mobilize $1 billion in investment over the next three years” and that its “first residents are expected to move in mid 2027.”
The company has lofty goals for the project, stating that the coming AI revolution will aid development of its city much as the “wealth created by banking and commerce helped make Florence the center of the Renaissance.”
Praxis said its city will “will pioneer new approaches to culture, economic coordination, and technology, designed for a future shaped by artificial general intelligence.”
Brown told the Times he plans to move on location in December. Praxis is set to begin buying land within +Colonia’s boundaries by the end of next year.
“Having, like, an actual place is, like, really, really fire,” Brown told the outlet.
Brown reportedly said he wants the city to serve as the staging ground for an entirely new culture inspired by the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome – with home purchases helping to fund its creation.
“Part of what AI creates will go towards funding the next great generation of artists, architects, and thinkers,” the aspiring pater patriae said in the press release. “We want the sale of exceptional homes to pay for extraordinary culture. The people who make a city worth living in should be able to afford to live there.”
Last year, Brown told The Post he wanted Praxis’s fledgling cybercity to be its own-city state, self-governing and free from any country’s laws.
Despite that goal, Brown told the Times that self-governance is not an immediate requirement and that he has already agreed to follow Uruguay’s legal system for the time being.
Other potential locations, including Greenland, were considered and discarded before Brown and his allies settled on Uruguay.
It’s just the latest example of a growing movement in tech and Silicon Valley circles among wealthy entrepreneurs who want to shape society on their own terms.
As The Post has reported, a group of elite tech investors including Marc Andreesen, Reid Hoffman and Laurene Powell Jobs have been trying for years to build a new city in Solano County, Calif. – but the project has stalled amid sharp resistance from local residents and lawmakers who see it as little more than a land grab.
Organizers have brushed off local criticism and say they’re merely envisioning a walkable city with short commutes, thousands of high-paying new jobs, sustainable energy, huge orchards and affordable homes.
Praxis did not immediately return a request for comment.