PLDT wants to build more data centers

PLDT Inc. is keen on scaling up its data center business given the increasing demand for hyperscalers, or entities providing cloud, networking and internet services.

“[We] are approaching capacity limits of our data centers. We have to build more. In today’s board [meeting], we told them to go ahead and expand,” Manuel Pangilinan, chair of the listed telco player, told reporters last week.

A data center is a facility that stores critical applications and data, according to networking hardware company Cisco.

PLDT currently has 10 facilities with a combined capacity of 72 megawatts.

“The mandate is ‘build to scale.’ You have to be big in order to compete with the big guys. That’s the only way,” he added.

He said that data centers were expected to develop similar to the business process outsourcing industry, a segment that has been raking in billions of dollars into the country.

For its part, Pangilinan said PLDT was playing into its strength as it leverages domestic network capacity to expand the segment.

“Then you got an enterprise business that can offer, on top of the connectivity, solutions to enterprises located in this country,” he added.

Last month, PLDT broke ground for VITRO Sta. Rosa, its 11th and biggest hyperscaler data center.

The company projects to spend P12 billion to P13 billion in the next five years for this project, which is designed to have a total capacity of 100 MW. INQ