$100-M data center opens in Pasig; smaller hubs to sprout across PH

Data center operator Beeinfotech PH opened a $100-million (P5.1 billion) data center in Pasig City, Metro Manila, joining a slew of companies seeking to tap booming demand for cloud services.

The company announced the general availability of its first data center called The Hive, a telco-neutral facility with at least 3,000 server racks located at the Bridgetowne Destination Estate in Pasig.

“With the increased demand for digital services under the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the recent efforts to improve the nation’s connectivity and IT (information technology) infrastructure, now is the perfect time to welcome hyperscalers and other large-scale partners to the Philippines,” said Beeinfotech PH president and CEO Reynaldo Huergas.

Data centers are power-intensive facilities that operate nonstop and provide crucial data storage and information technology services to businesses.

Huergas, who held executive positions at Globe Telecom, ABS-CBN North America and ePLDT, said the company would also build smaller-format data centers in provincial locations and possibly overseas.

Possible partnerships

In an email to the Inquirer, he said these smaller data centers would be called “edges” that would cater to “unserved and underserved areas outside Manila, the Visayas-Mindanao regions, and even nearby countries in the foreseeable future.”

The plan also entails possible partnerships with other data center operators.

“Our facility is configurable to the point where other [data center] operators can structure the facility using their existing designs, similar to a plug-and-play model of service that gives more freedom and customization,” he said.

The Hive, which was first announced in August last year, comes amid the surging use of internet services, fueled by changing work and schooling routines during the pandemic.

Local telecommunications and internet providers earlier announced plans to ramp up their data center footprint to meet rising demand.

Alibaba Cloud, owned by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, had announced it would build its first data center in the Philippines while Singapore’s SpaceDC said it would put up the country’s biggest data center in Cainta, Rizal.

Citing data from Research and Markets, Beeinfotech PH said the Philippine data center market would experience a compound annual growth rate of 11.40 percent up to 2026 with total investments reaching $535 million. INQ