STT GDC Philippines, a partnership of Globe Telecom, Ayala Corp. and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, expects demand for data centers in the Philippines to further grow this year.
This is fueled by cloud adoption, the rise of Artificial Intelligence, the shift to remote work, the increase of online services and the expanding 5G access, with digitalization accelerating in the country.
“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, and 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,” Carlo Malana, STT GDC Philippines president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
“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,” he added.
STT GDC Philippines is undergoing aggressive expansion, with two major builds in Fairview, Quezon City and in General Trias, Cavite announced in 2023.
The data center industry has been growing aggressively at a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent from 2022, with the trend forecast to remain until 2030, according to Bloomberg data.
It is currently valued at $62.3 billion, with its valuation expected to grow to $89.3 billion by 2030.
In the Philippines, an estimated 85 percent of businesses are expected to transition fully to the cloud by 2025, according to a survey commissioned by Alibaba Cloud.
Global market research firm International Data Corp., 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.
STT GDC Philippines currently has five data center facilities in Makati, Quezon City and Cavite, with a combined total capacity of 22 megawatts (MW). It is expanding in the next three years, with two major builds initiated last year.
STT Fairview is set to become the country’s biggest data center facility with a capacity of 124 MW once fully built by 2026, while its second facility at STT Cavite will offer an additional 6 MW.
