PLDT allots up to P13 billion for hyperscale data center

MANILA, Philippines — Telco behemoth PLDT Inc. will pour in a massive amount of capital expenditures to further expand its data center business in the country.

PLDT president and chief executive officer Alfredo Panlilio said the company plans to spend up to P13 billion to put up its largest hyperscale data center facility in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

“The first tranche, just to groundbreak and of course put the building up, it’s about P5 billion,” Panlilio said.

“So that’s the level of capex we’re committing to this business. That just on capex. It’s a major investment for PLDT,” he said.

VITRO Sta.Rosa, which started construction last Friday, is PLDT’s 11th data center in the country.

The facility will have a total power capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) to support the needs of global hyperscalers.

PLDT plans to build another data center with a similar power capacity as VITRO Sta. Rosa in the future.

“This is one of two 50-MW level hyperscalers. This is the first, and the 12th (data center), we’ll talk about it some other time,” Panlilio said.

PLDT has been one of the early enablers of the hyperscale industry, serving the unique requirements of global tech companies through existing VITRO facilities.

Through ePLDT, the telco has established itself as the country’s premier data center provider, aggressively growing its data center facilities since 2000.

As a pioneer and market leader in the Philippine data center arena, VITRO has established strategic partnerships with global and local leaders in the data center build and power generation spaces to ensure the highest standards and robustness for its newest data center site.