ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), a global data center operator, said it is investing over US$1 billion for its two Greenfield data centers in Fairview and Cavite, as capacity of existing facilities are running out on high demand from locators.
Carlo Malana, STT GDC Philippines president and CEO, said that the rule of thumb in data center investment is between US$11 million to $12 million per megawatt. The two new Fairview and Cavite data center have combined capacity of 130 megawatts, 124MW for the Fairview facility and 6 MW for the Cavite center.
“It’s north of a billion dollars,” Malana said during a media conversation at the “Practical Insights Manila” hosted by the company on May 8, 2025 in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.
A former chief information officer at Globe Telecom, Malana explained that the bulk of the investment in a call center is not just the structure, but all the equipment, such as the generators, air conditioning, UPS, transformers, switch gear, and “all of the things that that are there to be able or allow us to support our customers.” They also put in several layers of security to protect their facilities.
In expanding their data center facilities in the country, Malana noted of its optimism of the need to ramp up capacity noting that they have a high of 80 percent capacity utilization of its existing 7 centers in the country with total IT load of 150MW.
The Philippines is the second largest producer and user of data in the region after Indonesia, but lagged behind other countries with smaller population.
He anticipates accelerated demand as the pressure for localization of data storage builds up. At present, the data from the Philippines all go to Singapore for their storage. For security and cost efficiency, these data has to be accessed and consumed locally. In addition, Singapore is also lacking of space to accommodate the data going their way.
“At some point you have to rationalize that thing. So if you’re generating data here, you’re going to consume the data here,” he said. Other countries are also implementing their own localization programs.
Malana also corrected the notion that power cost in the Philippines is not competitive. He explained that since the data center requires a huge volume of power, they can leverage that capacity to strike a deal with power suppliers for a lower wholesale rate.
The final rate may not be the cheapest, he said, but he can assure locators, such as hyperscalers, that the power rate at their centers are within the range of other countries like Thailand and Malaysia. Singapore is a lot higher and other countries like Indonesia and Malaysia are also thinking of reducing their subsidies.
In addition, other countries have high presence of data centers already that they are now beginning to worry about availability of power supply.
“So that’s the answer to the question on why why we think the data answers makes sense,” he said.
Already, on May 7, 2025, ACEN signed a memorandum of agreement with Ayala Corporation (AC) and STT GDC Philippines, a joint venture between Globe, STT GDC, and AC, to collaboratively explore opportunities in the Philippine data center space. Through this partnership, ACEN will explore initiatives to deliver renewable energy solutions to the growing data center demand in the country.
Malana stressed that its data centers are using only renewable energy supply to power up their operations.
The fast paced digitalization and AI growth are also driving demand for data centers. With that, demand for computing is expected to rise and that would require huge data storage. “These computers need to be physically housed somewhere, and that’s where the data centers come in,” he said.
All business organizations have cloud and digitalization in their agenda, he said. “AI is going to be a necessity in the very near future,” he said. In fact, he said that what used be mantra to be “AI-ready” has now changed to “AI now.”
