Real estate investment trusts (REITs) and data centers are the bright spots for the country’s real estate sector.
Rick Santos, chairman and CEO of real estate services company Santos Knight Frank, said in an online press briefing on Wednesday that Covid-19 has led to a huge growth in data centers in the country.
Santos attributed this to the increasing dependence of people on technology. The growing demand for co-location, internet, and cloud services required the need for sophisticated facilities based in-country.
He said the Philippines has attracted data center operators due to the local population’s high digital consumption. According to Hootsuite, the number of internet and social media users in the Philippines rose by 6.1 percent and 22 percent in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
While the country currently has a total IT supply capacity of 94 megawatts (MW), Santos Knight Frank has recorded approximately 125 MW of additional planned capacity from operators who have expressed interest to build in the medium term.
Meanwhile, Santos said first-mover YCO Cloud Centers has announced the construction of a 12-megawatt (MW) IT-capacity data center in Malvar, Batangas. The initial stage of development begins with the construction of the site, a 10,000 sqm two-story data center including the first of four 3 MW data halls.
“The data center market is an exciting space for the Philippines. As the data center sector continues to grow alongside the increasing demand for data, we expect to see an upswing in activity for data center investments into the country,” Monica Gonzalez, Santos Knight Frank’s Data Centers Lead and Manager for Occupier Solutions and Services said during the briefing.
YCO MANILA DIGITAL 1, the first of several planned carrier-neutral, colocation and enterprise scale data centers targeting the Greater Manila Area, will serve as a gateway for the expansion of digital businesses within the Philippines.
“The Philippines is a leading, dynamic technology and digital hub in the Asia Pacific region but underserved in terms of state-of-the-art data center and digital infrastructure,” Nik de Ynchausti, CEO of YCO Cloud Centers said.
“The demand for colocation, 5G, internet and cloud services continues to grow rapidly. Our data center will address interest from enterprises seeking to scale their mission critical workload in the region. Special consideration has been placed on delivering greater connectivity, compute capacity and coverage in the areas along with sustainable sources of electrical power.
As the Philippines moves past the pandemic, Santos Knight Frank expects the country to be a major player in data center hub in Southeast Asia, one which will soon feature a robust supply of sophisticated facilities to serve customers.