Silicon Valley firm buys 3 Philippine data centers

Logo of the American the Internet connection and data center company Equinix in Amsterdam on July 14, 2021. (Photo by Sem van der Wal / ANP / AFP) 

Global digital infrastructure company Equinix is gearing up for its entry into the local market with the acquisition of three data centers—part of its expansion plan across the Asia-Pacific region.

In a statement on Tuesday, Equinix announced its purchase of data centers from technology solutions provider Total Information Management (TIM).

These hubs housing critical servers and networks have over 1,000 cabinets in capacity. They are also carrier-neutral, which means they can cater to any client. “We are thrilled to announce our expansion into the Philippines, a vibrant and rapidly expanding digital economy that presents immense opportunities for our valued customers and partners,” Equinix president for Asia-Pacific Jeremy Deutsch said.

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Deutsch said the acquisition would also enable their customers to “thrive and embrace digital transformation, harnessing the potential of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence,” which require higher data storage requirements.

“Equinix’s global platform and extensive network will provide enhanced connectivity, scalability and access to a thriving ecosystem of partners,” TIM chair Jose Mari Antunez said.

Founded in Silicon Valley in 1998, Equinix operates 260 data centers across 33 countries, 56 of which are in Asia-Pacific. It aims to expand further to new markets such as Jakarta, Indonesia and Chennai, India, this year.

The demand for data centers is on the rise due to the growing needs of hyperscalers, or entities providing cloud, networking and internet services such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google GCP, Alibaba AliCloud, IBM and Oracle.

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Telco players like PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom have also been investing heavily to build up their data center capacities in recent years.

PLDT has completed its 50-megawatt (MW) data center in Laguna by this month. Globe’s data center arm, meanwhile, broke ground for its 124-MW data center in Fairview, Quezon City last year.

Last year, Digital Edge (Singapore) Holdings launched its first facility, a 10-MW data center, in Laguna.

In 2023, the Department of Information and Communications Technology said it was expecting the local data center capacity of 60 MW to grow by 500 percent in the next two years with more players setting up shops here or expanding existing facilities. INQ