Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of Alibaba Group, announced in early June 2021 that it is planning to build its first data center in the Philippines by the end of 2021.
This data center will be able to better support the Philippines enterprises in adopting cloud technologies and in preparing for a digital-first future, especially that the country is Alibaba Cloud’s biggest market in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
The data center will be constructed in Manila and will extend the reach of Alibaba Cloud’s offerings in the Philippines, ranging from elastic computing, database, security, and network services to machine learning and data analytics capabilities. It will also bring the company’s total availability zones to 76 spread across 25 regions worldwide. Upon completion, this will make the Philippines become the fourth country in Southeast Asia to have a local Alibaba Cloud data center, following Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia
The data center is part of Alibaba Cloud’s USD 1 billion investment in APAC called Project AsiaForward, announced on June 8, 2021, at the Alibaba Cloud Summit 2021. The investment will be used to fuel a million-strong digital talent pool, empower 100,000 developers, and the growth of 100,000 technology startups in APAC over the next three years.
In the Philippines, Alibaba Cloud aims to train 50,000 local information technology professionals and help 5,000 businesses migrate online by 2023.
(Source: Philippine News Agency, Rappler)