BIZ BUZZ: PAREx ‘still on the table’

Over two months have passed since San Miguel Corp. (SMC) publicly announced it was dropping the P81.53-billion Pasig River Expressway (PAREx) due to adverse public opinion, but the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) said no formal action had been done yet to withdraw the project.

“Up to this time, we have not received an official communication from SMC Infrastructure,” TRB Executive Director Alvin Carullo told reporters last week. As such, he said the PAREx project was “still on the table,” technically speaking.

The project is now in the final engineering design stage, the TRB official noted, but further review of the project has stalled due to the recent development.

To recall, SMC chief Ramon Ang disclosed in March they were no longer pursuing the heavily criticized 19.37-kilometer elevated toll road project after hearing out the public’s opinion. Environmental groups previously warned against the project causing damage to the Pasig River ecosystem.

The PAREx project is a six-lane expressway passing through the Pasig River from Radial Road 10 in Manila and the proposed South East Metro Manila Expressway at Circumferential Road 6. —Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

New Alibaba data center in PH

The Alibaba Group, a Chinese multinational technology company, recently announced plans to put up additional data centers in key markets across the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea in the next three years.

“With the rapidly rising demand for AI (artificial intelligence) across industries, we are reinforcing our commitment to expanding our AI infrastructure and enhancing our cloud capacities worldwide,” said Alibaba Cloud Intelligence president of international business Selina Yuan.

Data centers are hubs housing critical servers and information technology networks. Demand for such facilities has been on the rise amid increasing digitalization.

In fact, Alibaba is expanding alongside other major industry players including PLDT Inc., Globe Telecom and Converge ICT Solutions Inc. They are seeing more hyperscalers, or entities providing cloud, networking and internet services, needing more data storage requirements for their operations.

Now, the question is: How much is the design capacity for Alibaba’s upcoming data center? Let’s see! —Tyrone Jasper C. Piad