A think tank recently said that the Philippines lags behind the growing global data center market, as it continues to lack infrastructure and policies needed to adapt to the demands of the global digital economy.
Stratbase Institute president Victor Andres Manhit said that the country falls behind other Southeast Asian countries in securing hyperscale data center and could infrastructure investments, citing reports from Synergy Research Group and Grand View Research, he said that the global data center market is forecast to grow to $652 billion by 2030.
Data from Cloudstone,Reuters, and Data Center Dynamics show that Malaysia and Indonesia secured digital infrastructure investments worth $16.7 billion and $5 billion, respectively, while the Philippines only captured $1.35 billion in data center commitments, primarily from STT GDC – Ayala, and PLDT.
“Policymakers and business leaders must urgently align national infrastructure and data governance policies so that the Philippines won’t miss out on billions in potential investment if current trends on the global data center market persists,” Manhit said.
He said that the Philippines “holds a comparative advantage” in the data sovereignty issue due to the country’s Data Privacy Act and rollout of Model Contractual Clauses for cross-border data transfers.
With active participation in the digital economy worth billions, a long term national digital infrastructure strategy has become necessary, and there should be stronger partnerships between the government, telecom companies, and the private sector.
“We need targeted energy incentives to bring down the cost of running digital facilities. We must ramp up STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education and invest in real AI (artificial intelligence) skills training. And above all, we must ensure our data policies stay open, innovation friendly, and trusted – while still safeguarding national interests,” Manhit stressed.
As the nation focuses on issues like the agriculture sector and corruption in government, we also have to remain competitive and relevant when it comes to emerging or booming sectors or markets like the data centers that are powering the cloud and the artificial intelligence boom. If the Philippines cannot provide digital facilities and infrastructure, then we will be customers who have to pay more, instead of being providers that can earn from what is a booming market. Our problem is if our government is making it possible to be competitive, or is it even aware that there is a competition?*
