By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Reporter

US-BASED digital infrastructure company Equinix, Inc. said it is finalizing the acquisition of three data centers in the Philippines, as part of its plan to expand further in Southeast Asia.

“We see the Philippines as a significant addition to our ecosystem because we’ve had quite a number of inquiries from global customers who want to extend their footprints in Manila,” Simon Lockington, senior director of global solution architecture – APAC at Equinix, told BusinessWorld in a virtual interview.

Last year, Equinix announced its planned entry into the Philippine data center market through the acquisition of three data centers from Total Information Management Corp. (TIM).

“[By the] second half of this year, that’s when [the acquisition] will be finalized,” Mr. Lockington said. “Once the conditions of closing have been satisfied, we’ll make some more definitive announcement around the dates.”

The Philippines remains an attractive location for the company’s data center expansion plans due to its proximity to key data center hubs in the region.

“We’re finding that our customers are appreciating the additional choice that our new markets are offering,” Mr. Lockington said.

“So, with Manila being close to Hong Kong, but also very equidistant to Tokyo, South Korea, and Singapore as well… it gives them additional options [to expand] instead of only being limited to a few markets.”

However, the Philippines must improve its power and connectivity infrastructure to become a more viable location for data centers, Mr. Lockington said.

Data centers are also ideally built on land located away from airports, flood-prone areas, and active earthquake zones.

“I think that has been perhaps one of the reasons why it’s taken us a little bit more time than we thought to find appropriate sites in the new markets that we have expanded into,” Mr. Lockington said.

Equinix is also targeting 100% green energy coverage worldwide by 2030, with current capacity at 96%.

To expand its renewable energy supply, the company has signed two power purchase agreements with Singapore. It has also signed agreements with Japan, Australia, and India.

Looking ahead, Equinix expects high demand for data centers in Southeast Asia due to the rise of artificial intelligence and increased enterprise cloud adoption, Mr. Lockington said.

For instance, a ChatGPT inquiry would consume up to ten times more energy than an average Google search, he added.

“Given that the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian) nations have rapidly increasing populations who are consuming more and more digital content and services… we are just going to see an increasing level of expansion for companies like Equinix to help support those initiatives.”

To date, Equinix has over 270 data centers across 35 countries.