PLDT to put up 100-MW data hub, its biggest so far
MANILA -The data center race continues to heat up with the PLDT Group announcing its plan to build its 12th facility with at least 100-megawatt (MW) capacity—its biggest yet—as it envisions the country to be the next hyperscaler hub in Asia.
Victor Genuino, president and CEO of ICT subsidiary ePLDT, said in a statement on Friday the company has been allocating funds for said digital infrastructures to address increasing data requirements with more users turning to online platforms.
With this project in the pipeline, the Pangilinan-led company is looking at increasing its current 65-percent data center market share. The planned facility is only 24-MW short of the $1-billion hub that the Ayala Group is currently building in Fairview, Quezon City.
No details about the project timeline, investment and location have been disclosed. The Inquirer reached out to PLDT but has yet to receive a response.
A 100-MW facility can house thousands of servers and related IT hardware. A data hub is a facility that stores critical applications and data, according to networking hardware company Cisco.
“We want to be able to help the Philippines be the next hyperscaler hub of Asia while continuing to support the digital transformation journey of different sectors locally. That’s why we’ve been investing heavily in our ecosystem to ensure that our data centers will be a crucial enabler of the country’s digital economy,” Genuino said.
Hyperscalers are entities providing cloud, networking and internet services such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google GCP, Alibaba AliCloud, IBM and Oracle.
PLDT is currently constructing its 11th data center, VITRO Sta. Rosa. The 50-MW facility is slated to go live by early next year.
Genuino said they have been receiving colocation requests for the data center from various sectors, including banks, business process outsourcing, carriers and the government.
The completion of the 11th and 12th data centers will bring ePLDT’s capacity to 200 MW.
According to Santos Knight Frank, the country currently has a 94-MW data center capacity.
A report by S&P Global Market Intelligence said the country was seen to register a 13-percent compounded annual growth rate up to 2025. INQ
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