Converge sets expansion for boom in data centers

MANILA  -Converge ICT Solutions Inc. is spending at least $60 million to put up three data centers given the increasing demand for data storage in the advent of accelerated digitalization.

Dennis Uy, the CEO and founder of the internet service provider, told reporters in Manila last week their goal of building data hubs in Pampanga, Quezon City and Cebu in the next 18 to 24 months. These will accompany existing facilities in Clark and Pasig.

Each data center will be built with 600 racks, which can be expanded to 1,000. A rack houses servers, networking devices and other equipment.

Uy said each hub would cost at least $20 million. Converge, he noted, has enough funds to realize the projects.

Converge, along with other players, is infusing capital into data center investments amid the projected growth in data requirements from hyperscalers, or entities providing cloud, networking and internet services. These include Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google GCP, Alibaba AliCloud, IBM and Oracle.

PLDT Inc., for example, recently announced its plan to set up a 12th data center. Globe Telecom Inc., meanwhile, recently broke ground for a data hub in Fairview, Quezon City.

“As more companies digitize and turn to cloud platforms for seamless operations, we expect this increased reliance online to translate to greater data consumption that will prop up demand for data centers in the future,” according to real estate expert JLL Philippines.

Growing demand

With the data center expansion in the pipeline, the listed company is also working on making the 5,000-kilometer Bifrost Cable System available by 2024.

The project, Converge’s venture with Keppel Midgard Holdings Pte. Ltd., will connect the Philippines to Singapore, Indonesia, Guam and the west coast of North America. It has a design capacity of up to 15 terabits per second (Tbps).

The subsea cable system is designed to support the growing digital connectivity needs in the Asia-Pacific region while establishing a direct link with North America.

Another cable project, the 5,000-km South East Asia Hainan-Hong Kong Express Cable System, is also set to be operational by next year.

The fiber project, which has a design capacity of 160 Tbps, covers the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, East Malaysia and Singapore. INQ