Extra tags: Data Centre
Digital Edge (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd. ("Digital Edge" or the "Company") announced the formation of a joint venture in the Philippines with the Threadborne Group, a local family office specialising in technology and real estate. The JV will build and operate a 10MW data centre in Manila, with a total capital commitment of more than USD100 million from both parties. The new data centre will be built on Digital Edge's next-generation architecture and will be operated under the Digital Edge brand.
The Manila data centre is already under construction and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2022. It will be the Philippines' largest operational carrier-neutral data centre. The facility also aspires to be the most advanced in the market in terms of energy and water efficiency, with an annualised PUE of 1.193 at optimal operating temperature and a WUE of 1.355. The facility will enable Digital Edge to provide flexible, high-quality colocation and interconnection services to both domestic and international customers in the Greater Manila area. The facility's low PUE and WUE make it unique in the market for cloud and other high power density colocation applications.
According to Structure Research, Philippines's colocation market is expected to become a US$313M market by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 22% between 2021 and 2026. Jabez Tan, Head of Research at Structure Research, notes that "Alibaba Cloud is currently the first and only hyperscale cloud platform to announce a cloud region deployment in Manila, Philippines, and we believe more cloud region announcements will soon follow in the next two years driven by the overall decentralisation of hyperscale cloud platforms into more distributed and in-country data centre architectures to cater for the increasing performance requirements and data privacy regulations."
"The Philippines is an underserved market with huge demand for data centre capacity and, together with the Threadborne Group, we intend to be at the forefront of developing the critical data centre infrastructure for this market," said Samuel Lee, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Edge. "The Threadborne Group's principals are experienced real estate developers with a proven track record and we are very pleased to have joined forces with them to undertake this important initiative. This venture is another step forward in the Company's ambition to transform Asia's digital infrastructure by building and operating the most energy efficient and connectivity-rich data centres in key emerging markets."
"Digital Edge's knowledge and experience in designing, constructing, and operating data centres combined with our local real estate and customer knowledge, has created a solid foundation on which to grow this partnership," said Raymond Rufino, Principal for Investments and Real Estate of the Threadborne Group. "Digital Edge shares our strong conviction for this market and in the importance of setting robust, long-term ESG goals. We are already receiving very positive feedback from a number of potential customers and are confident that this is just the beginning!"
"We are very excited about the energy and water efficiency achieved in the design of the Digital Edge Manila data centre. Given Manila's hot and humid climate, it is extremely difficult to achieve an annualised PUE of 1.193 at the optimal operating temperature, but the team has been able to achieve an impressive result," said Jay Park, Chief Development Officer of Digital Edge. "The WUE of 1.355 is also significant in that it uses less than a quarter of the water needed for cooling when compared to traditional style cooling tower type setups. These are industry leading numbers. We will be seeking LEED Gold certification, EDGE certification, and participating as an early pilot partner for BERDE (Philippines Local Green Building Certification). This data centre will most certainly put the Philippines into the league of having one of the most advanced data centres in Asia."
