Philippine Globe Telecom Plans to Invest $1 Billion in Data Center
According to Bloomberg, Globe Telecom plans to invest $1 billion in building data centers by 2027, aiming to develop this field into the company’s next billion dollar business. This expansion is driven by the capacity demand brought about by the surge in AI workloads.
Carl Cruz, President and CEO of Globe Telecom, stated, “We need to continue investing in networks. We will continue to do so, but we will be very selective in focusing on high priority areas related to data and the digital economy.” He added that Globe Telecom’s capital expenditures are expected to account for 23% to 28% of its revenue in the coming years.
This second largest telecommunications operator in the Philippines operates its data center business through ST Telemedia Global Data Centers (STT GDC) Philippines, a joint venture between Ayala Corporation, the parent company of Globe Telecom, and Singapore based STT GDC. STT GDC Philippines currently operates five facilities, with an expected capacity of 30 to 35 megawatts by the end of this year. In the next three years, the IT load is expected to increase to 124MW through the addition of new sites and expansion of existing facilities.
According to Bloomberg, Globe Telecom is considering publicly listing its data center joint venture to raise expansion funds. Cruz explained, “The market provides a fairly generous valuation for anything related to the digital economy.”
Like other markets in Southeast Asia, AI adoption is the main driving force behind the growth of data center sectors in the Philippines. Cruz told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, “We are currently struggling to meet the demand for data centers.” He added that the company is “doubling its efforts” to seize growth opportunities. Cruz pointed out that Globe Telecom has received “a large number of inquiries about AI related products”.
Difficult competition
The Philippines is widely regarded as lagging behind regional peers such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand in attracting large-scale investments and rapid deployment of data centers. There are currently 44 data centers in the country with an online capacity of 140MW, an additional 43MW under construction, and 221MW planned.
However, the Philippines has set ambitious goals to increase AI data center capacity by 30 times, from the current 50MW to 1.5GW by 2033. The first phase will complete 400MW by 2030. The Philippine government announced these data center targets in its $34 billion National AI Plan two weeks ago.
According to a report by BMI Research cited by local media, these goals are achievable given that upcoming projects have shifted towards large-scale facilities designed for cloud and artificial intelligence workloads. For example, STT GDC Philippines plans to build a 124MW Fairview park in Quezon City, as well as facilities planned by ePLDT in Krabi, both of which can provide at least 100MW of capacity.
BMI stated, “The Philippines may become a more important destination for cloud and other high-value ultra large scale customers. However, the announced capacity may take several years to become available computing power, and the project pipeline in the Philippines is still limited compared to Malaysia and Indonesia.”
In addition, the research company pointed out that the Philippines cannot wait for spillover business, but must actively compete with neighboring countries to attract data center investment. BMI stated, “Therefore, the Philippines must compete for deployment rather than relying on automatic overflow.” It added that the Philippines needs to use its submarine cables to connect mature Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea.
However, ensuring large-scale investment will depend crucially on sufficient power supply, adequate land availability, and shortened project deployment time. According to BMI, the expansion of data centers will mainly depend on the government’s ability to address the current bottleneck in the approval process that is slowing down capacity deployment.