Digital adoption and population growth in the Philippines is outpacing its Southeast Asian neighbors. Filipinos spend an average of nearly 10 hours online daily, greater than in any other country in the region, according to data from Statista.
In the wake of the pandemic, an increasing number of enterprises are also going digital, shifting to cloud-based IT solutions to adjust to the new normal. Fueled by cloud adoption, the rise of AI, shift to remote work, increase of online services, and expanding 5G access, digitalization has been accelerating in the country. All that data needs space.
This underscores the critical importance of data centers, a space that the Globe Group has laid a stake on through ST Telemedia Global Data Centres Philippines (STT GDC Philippines). The firm, a joint venture between Globe, Ayala Corporation, and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres of Singapore, is undergoing aggressive expansion, with two major builds in Fairview, Quezon City and General Trias, Cavite announced in 2023.
“The data center industry has been seeing consistent and staggering growth in recent years, as demand for data storage grows globally. Every video you stream, every photo you post on social media, every app you download needs storage space, and that is housed in data centers. The data center is the home of the cloud. There is simply no way we could advance digitalization without it,” said Carlo Malana, STT GDC Philippines President and CEO.
Data centers are crucial in ensuring smooth and reliable connectivity access, whether for earning, learning, entertainment or enterprise. It is also important in ensuring safe storage of the data of billions of online users.
The data center industry has been growing aggressively at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 14.7% from 2022, with the trend forecast to remain until 2030, according to Bloomberg data. It is currently valued at US$62.3 billion, with its valuation expected to grow to US$89.3 billion by 2030.
In the Philippines, an estimated 85 percent of businesses are expected to transition fully to cloud by 2025, according to a survey commissioned by Alibaba Cloud. Global market research firm International Data Corporation, meanwhile, found that the Philippines logged the highest cloud market growth in 2022, as Southeast Asian countries outdid global figures, according to a Nikkei Asia report.
“By 2024 and beyond, we can only expect demand for data storage to grow even faster. That’s why STT GDC Philippines is bulking up on capacity to service these needs not just locally but also in the region. We are so strategically located that we can become the next regional data center hub. STT GDC Philippines hopes to be front and center, and we want to make this happen,” said Malana.
STT GDC Philippines currently has five data center facilities in Makati, Quezon City and Cavite, with a combined total capacity of 22MW. It is expanding in the next three years, with two major builds initiated this year. STT Fairview is set to become the country’s biggest data center facility with a capacity of 124MW once fully built by 2026. Meanwhile, its second facility at STT Cavite, which also broke ground this year, will offer an additional 6MW.
To learn more about STT GDC Philippines, please visit https://www.sttelemediagdc.com/ph-en.
