Alibaba Cloud to expand in Philippines

Alibaba Cloud Intelligence plans to invest more in the Philippines after opening a data center given the increasing digital adoption.

Allen Guo, country manager for the big technology firm, said in a press briefing on Tuesday in Makati they were considering to expand the capacity of their data center to accommodate the growing use of digital platforms.

Moving forward, he said that the biggest trends in technology would include cloud, digitization, internet of things and mobile platforms.

“In the Philippine market, the cloud adoption and also cloud service in the market have kept growing ,and also we still can see a big potential demand from the Filipino,” Guo said.

“In order to support the Philippines’ cloud adoption and digitalization target, Alibaba Cloud … will continue our investment in the Philippines,” he added.

Guo said their data center, which opened in October last year, supports more than 200 companies in the country.

The facility, Alibaba said, has enabled local businesses across sectors such as financial technology, e-commerce, education and media to use cloud technologies to make their operations more efficient.

The digital technology arm of the Alibaba Group said it was their goal to power all their data centers, including the one in the country, with clean energy by 2030.

Eco-friendly data centers were crucial to ensure sustainable operations, the company said, noting that five of its facilities in China had transitioned into renewable energy sources.

“Alibaba Cloud aims to be a trusted cloud service provider and partner in the Philippines. We have established a local team and business coverage in the Philippines and will continue to grow and strengthen our digital ecosystem in the Philippines,” Guo said.

“Given the wide-scale adoption of cloud technology in the Philippines, we are hopeful to continue building a very fruitful ecosystem to support the country’s digitalization,” he added.

According to real property expert Knight Santos Frank, the data center capacity in the country could grow to 220 megawatts (MW) from the current 94 MW based on existing and potential projects.