Converge starts data center training for UP personnel

MANILA, Philippines — Broadband provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. has started rolling out immersion programs for University of the Philippines (UP) talents who want to learn the inner workings of a data center.

Converge yesterday said it has completed a three-day immersion for information technology (IT) personnel from UP, giving them an inside look on how a data center works.

The program also covered discussions on some of the most important IT technicalities like cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity systems and sustainable technology.

UP vice president for digital infrastructure Peter Sy said the university wants its personnel to see a data center first hand.

This way, they get an inside look of a facility tasked to store applications and information, making it one of the most important assets in the digital era.

Sy said the tour comes at a time when UP is professionalizing its IT operations. In particular, the tour responds to the urgency of building up the university’s knowledge on digital governance and emergency response.

The program takes off from the memorandum of understanding (MOU) struck by Converge with UP in 2025, which would run for three years.

“Institutional IT partnerships typically stall between intent and execution, between the MOU and the measurable outcome, so here UP personnel are not in a seminar room reviewing slides about data centers, (but) they are standing inside one,” Sy said.

Converge views its partnership with UP as one of the many steps it has to take to graduate from being an internet service provider and become a tech innovator.

The immersion was conducted in the Angeles Data Center, a facility capable of offering up to 12 megawatts and is the largest and fourth of its kind in Converge’s portfolio, bolstering its capacity to store data.

Converge invested at least $500 million, or about P27.5 billion, to expand its tech infrastructure needed to fulfill the transition. The Angeles Data Center required P5 billion to construct.

In total, Converge offers roughly 19 MW in data center capacity, consisting of four MW in prior supply in Clark and Pasig City and a fresh three MW in a newly opened facility in Caloocan City.

Converge CEO and co-founder Dennis Anthony Uy said his company is eager to invest in the data center space to meet future demand for artificial intelligence and data consumption.