Manila, Philippines [January 29, 2022] — Hyperscalers looking for geographic expansion should consider the Philippines for its strong legacy in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, future of work programs, and hyperscale roadmap—a study conducted by data analytics and consulting company GlobalData showed.

According to the research titled ‘Why the Philippines Should Be the Next Destination for Hyperscalers,’ the country is the next logical destination for global tech giants due to several factors such as its success in terms of outsourcing, government support, business climate, accelerated cloud adoption, and significant steps for sustainability.

The study cited that the Philippines has a stable and evolving BPO sector as one of the global leaders in BPO, which currently holds about 10 to 15 percent of the global market and an annual growth rate of 10 percent over the past decade.

This entails a strong demand for cloud and artificial intelligence, driven by the shift of companies to remote working setup and the use of data and analytics to understand the online customer journey.

More enterprises in the country are also seen to move to the cloud with the adoption of hybrid operations and vertical applications, enabled by continuous network expansion efforts through 5G and fiber led by the PLDT Group. This is said to “drive the cloud market in the Philippines to grow solidly to US$ 2.8 billion in 2025.”

The PLDT Group has been augmenting its capabilities to strengthen the country’s global connectivity infrastructure and be the next preferred geographic destination of hyperscalers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Likewise, it has been leading various industry initiatives including the launch of commercial mobile 5G last year, which now has over 6,000 sites, to provide the best connectivity experience to its customers.

Moreover, the group also owns 615,000 kilometers fiber optic cables spread across the country to date, as it also marks its domination of the submarine cable capacities terminating in the Philippines.

In terms of sustainability, the group has implemented comprehensive sustainability programs, in partnership with Meralco and the energy department, with a focus on reducing its carbon footprint and improving environmental conservation.

Its key sustainability initiatives include its target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 by reducing carbon emissions, extending the use of renewable energy; and expanding investment in environmental projects.

“The digital economy in the Southeast Asian region is clearly at the cusp of unprecedented growth, and the Philippines is leading the way and growing the fastest,” said Gary Ignacio, PLDT Enterprise VP & Sector Head for Strategic Business Development, citing an excerpt from a recent market research report that tackled internet economy growth in the region.

“As such, the PLDT Group continues to invest heavily on network and IT infrastructure, as we anticipate the hyperscalers’ momentum to further build up in this part of the world. We’re beefing up our international capacities for full hyperscale readiness, with our investments on new cable systems such as Jupiter, APRICOT and the Asia Direct Cable. We’re also ramping up on our data center capacity build, which includes a plan to build a world-class hyperscale data center facility in the country,” Ignacio added.

Meanwhile, the study further mentioned that 29 percent of the businesses they surveyed are considering edge computing within the next three years, which represents another major opportunity for hyperscalers and telecommunication providers.

“Many businesses need the speed and agility of hyperscale solutions, ideally with the security and regulatory compliance that only locally hosted applications can offer to the various industry verticals operating in the Philippines,” the research indicated.

Moreover, the growing support of the government to develop the hyperscaler sector is helping create the right environment to further drive market traction and growth, with implementation of incentives program for hyperscalers expanding their operations in the Philippines, passage of relevant laws on data privacy and security, and the thrust for a cloud-first strategy across the public sector, among others.

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