Media Release:
MANILA, March 10, 2021 – Arcadis, the leading global Design & Consultancy organization for natural and built assets, today announced the release of its Data Center Location Index 2021, which lists the most favorable markets for localization.
Out of 50 cities, Philippines is amongst the most attractive cities to build data centers, ranking at number 49. Asia-Pacific is very well represented in the index, with 13 other markets featured on the list and strong performances from Singapore, Japan and Greater China.
Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and 5G is deemed as the building blocks of Philippines post-pandemic economic recovery, and data centers play an integral role in the facilitation of these areas. Coupled with the country’s growing digital economy resulting from the pandemic, the need to connect, transfer, protect and store data has never been much greater.
“The Philippine data center market has yet to realize its full potential compared to its neighboring counties. It is one of the targeted Data Center growth locations by several investors and major cloud service providers, and due to the extensive Covid-19 lockdown periods in the country, it has been accelerated by remote working, distance learning, online streaming, e-commerce, and a surge in digital payments,” said Darneil Perez, Arcadis’ Market head in the Philippines.
“To help realize the country’s growth potential in this area, it’s important to promote green energy electrical generating plant, drive further investment and ensure flexible electricity rates. Providing data center-related training to mid-skill workers could help Philippines become an attractive market for investors looking to build data centers. In addition, edge Data Centers at local and remote areas can also be utilized to strengthen the networks and latency improvement,” said Min Thura Aung, associate director, and head of Mission Critical & Energy at Arcadis Asia.
Covering 50 of the largest cities across six continents the Arcadis Data Center Location Index 2021 ranks optimal places to build data centers in the world. It is based on each market’s performance across eight key criteria: GDP per capita, dealing with construction permits, price of electricity, energy security, cybersecurity, domestic market size, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions, and mean download speed.
The index provides insights that can be used to guide the decision-making process about where to establish a new facility. Additionally, the 2021 report outlines a roadmap for the process of building a new data center and focuses on the significant current issues impacting the industry including climate change, the effects of Covid-19, and the growth of hyperscalers. (/)
Download the full report here
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Featured image of a street scene at Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, Metro Manila. (Credit: SDN — Science & Digital News)