Alibaba to put up data center in Manila

MANILA, Philippines — Alibaba Cloud of Chinese tech tycoon Jack Ma will put up its first data center in Manila to capture the growing demand for e-commerce and position itself as one of the leading digital firms in the Philippines.

Alibaba Cloud general manager for Hong Kong, Macau and the Philippines Leo Liu yesterday said the Chinese innovator would construct a data center in Manila toward the end of this year to widen its technological capabilities in Asia.

Establishing a data center in Manila will allow the firm to offer elastic compute, database, security and network services, as well as machine learning and data analytics to partners and clients in the Philippines.

Likewise, it will expand Alibaba Cloud’s availability zones to a total of 76 in 25 regions worldwide. As such, the Chinese e-commerce leader is poised to grab a share in the growing demand for online retail as a result of the shift to digital transactions during the pandemic.

“Cloud computing has become central to the digitalization of businesses in the Philippines and around Asia. With our first data center in the country, we will be able to better support Philippine enterprises in adopting cloud technologies and preparing for a digital-first future,” Liu said.

“We look forward to building out the cloud ecosystem in the Philippines and contributing to the digital economy in Asia, leveraging the synergy with other hubs in the region,” he added.

Allen Guo, Alibaba Cloud’s country manager for the Philippines, said putting up the data center would improve the services the firm can offer to its clients in the country, especially at a time that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) need to transition to the digital space.

“It is important for local enterprises to have access to reliable cloud infrastructure to efficiently meet the evolving needs of Filipino consumers,” Guo said.

Alibaba Cloud has partnered with more than 20 organizations in the Philippines engaged in the retail, health care, financial technology, information technology, media and education industries. The cooperation with sectoral groups seeks to support MSMEs shift to the online landscape at a period when e-commerce is taking over retail transactions.

Likewise, the data center in Manila will speed up Alibaba Cloud’s objective to train 50,000 digital professionals by 2023. The firm also looks to migrate a total of 5,000 businesses online.