Alibaba Cloud building first data center in PH

MANILA – Filipino professionals in the digital technology industry can expect employment opportunities as Alibaba Cloud, the digital intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, eyes to build its first data center in the Philippines by the end of this year.

In a virtual media interview on Tuesday, the company’s general manager, Leo Liu, said the center will cater to the digitalization of businesses in the Philippines and Asia so jobs will abound.

“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,” he 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 said the company has kept track of the Philippines’ emerging pool of talents and would like to make use of it.

“We can see that the Philippine economy is performing well amid the pandemic and as it recovers, these opportunities will be of great help to the government because this is a big hit for income generation,” Liu said.

The new data center 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.

Local businesses across sectors such as financial technology (FinTech), e-commerce, education, and media will be able to adopt and implement cloud technologies more efficiently and better position themselves to capture the emerging opportunities in the country, he said.

Cloud services include servers, storage, database, software, and analytics over the Internet for faster and more flexible access.

Alibaba is a Chinese multinational technology company that specializes in such.

Allen Guo, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence country manager, said the data center will be constructed in Manila and will bring the company’s total availability zones to 76 spread across 25 regions worldwide.

“Alibaba Cloud’s upcoming data center launch underscores our commitment to equipping Philippine customers with secure, reliable, and scalable cloud solutions. It is important for local enterprises to have access to reliable cloud architecture to efficiently meet the evolving needs of Filipino consumers. We are glad to be in a position to provide local enterprises with the tools they need to succeed,” he added.

The two officials said the Philippines is their biggest market in the Asia Pacific and it will also benefit from their newly launched program catering to countries in the region.

In Liu’s presentation, he shared that Alibaba will invest USD1 billion for a program benefitting Asian countries with a vision to foster about 1,000,000 digital talents, empower 100,000 developers, and accelerate the growth of 100,000 tech startups.

In 2020, Alibaba Cloud announced the formation of the Philippines Ecosystem Alliance to fast-track the digitalization of local businesses and support the government’s Cloud First Policy.

The company also aims to train 50,000 local informatiton technology professionals and help 5,000 businesses migrate online by 2023.