Digital Edge eyes second data center in Philippines

NARRA1 Exterior

MANILA, Philippines  -Digital Edge (Singapore) Holdings is looking at opening a second facility in Metro Manila after opening its first data center in Binan, Laguna, amid the growing demand for colocation services in the advent of increased digitalization.

Jonathan Chou, chief product officer for Digital Edge, said in a recent briefing that they planned to realize the expansion plan in the next five years, noting the company was focused on first “filling up” the existing data center with customers.

“We have a very firm conviction of the size and growth potential of the market in the Philippines. So, we will continue to invest,” he said.

This was mainly driven by the increasing data requirements brought about by accelerated digitalization and expanding connectivity with the construction of undersea fiber cable systems.

The Singaporean company previously shared its commitment to spend $100 million for its Philippine operations.

But Raymond Rufino, principal for investments and real estate of Digital Edge joint venture partner Threadborne Group, said the funding was expected to be exhausted this year, expressing the need to secure a loan facility this year to build the second data center.

The first facility, NARRA1, was launched on Mar. 1. The 10-megawatt data center has 2,200 cabinets, 12 data halls and colocation space of 5,200 square meters.

It is designed to address the demand coming from cloud, network, digital media and enterprise customers.

Digital Edge Philippines country manager Vic Barrios said they already have a “strong pipeline” of clients—including internet service providers—who have prebooked their services prior to the official opening.

He said the company was well-positioned given the lack of data center capacity in the country.

“Other competitors are building but they are still catching up. So we have opportunity to capture the demand,” he said.

Digital Edge is a data center platform company headquartered in Singapore and has a presence in the Philippines, China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Korea. INQ