A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet and interact with Victor ‘Viboy’ Genuino, the president and CEO of ePLDT and of VITRO, Inc. A key figure in the ongoing transformation of our Philippine digital landscape, he is tasked with leading PLDT’s strategy in physical data centers, and in offering multi-cloud and AI solutions. He was previously involved with PLDT Global, and was then based in Hong Kong; and was head of Customer Retail Services and Corporate Communications at Meralco. It’s his involvement with VITRO, Inc., that compelled me to have that meeting.

In case you’ve been hiding under the rock of Tech News, VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR), located in Laguna, was the rage on social media a few months ago for those attuned to the world of technology and data centers. For the geeks and techies, the announcement surrounding VITRO and it’s launch, attended by no less than President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was something of a clarion call that the Philippines was levelling up as a major hyperscaler hub in the Asia Pacific region. Driven by sustainable power, the renewable energy sources for VITRO are part of the overall plan to manage costs, meet environmental goals, and still keep VITRO competitive for the services it would be offering.

It is a grand vision, as VITRO will be our first 50-megawatt (MW) hyperscale data center, built specifically for the latest of Artificial Intelligence workloads. The most current version of the NVIDIA GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) will be used and available at VITRO. And Viboy has happy to say that those who’d like to “play” with NVIDIA as their metaphorical sandbox, who want to test “proof of concept,” can be charged by the hour at VITRO. To help make VITRO practical and accessible, there’s even a VITRO Academy course being offered at five universities.

I’m far from being a techie, so I had to ask Viboy to take a hundred steps back; and acquaint me, in layman language, as to why VITRO is such a game-changer, and why PLDT has made the commitment to dream in hyperscale, and pursue this dream into reality! And I’m thankful that he was ready to accommodate me.

He first spoke of submarine communication cable systems that carry telecommunication signals, and how they’re the digital infrastructure that connects us to the world. Here in the Philippines, it would be PLDT, Globe, Converge, and the BCDA that are the major players operating cable landing stations. For PLDT alone, there are three such systems –Jupiter, the Asian Direct Cable, and APRICOT. To understand the typical scenario, APRICOT has landing stations in Davao, then in Baler, and on to Japan and the USA. These systems are expected to triple in the next five years!

With this impending millions of kilometers of fibre, the data accumulated has to “meet” somewhere. From our mobile phones, our apps, from data pulled from the cloud; this gigantic mass of information and data has to be stored somewhere. Just think of the Googles, Amazon Web Services and Facebooks of this world, and how much support is needed for hyperscale, cloud, and enterprise workloads.

And this is where Vitro Santa Rosa (VSR), a hyperscale grade data center of 50 MW has a prominent role to play – acting like a “warehouse.” When we refer to hyperscale computing, we’re referring to that critical level that’s required for handling big data, for cloud computing, and AI workloads. Hyperscale infrastructure is specifically designed to store far beyond what typical enterprise data centers can offer. This is talking about thousands of servers and data halls in a single environment.

As Viboy commented, the VSR’s physical space is equal to three Mall of Asia’s. Its carrier-neutral so all comers are welcome to store their data at VSR; and its built to top grade specifications, such that its core and shell structure can withstand magnitude-8 earthquakes. I was made aware of how the power density, the liquid cooling, needed for the numerous data halls satisfy the strictest of world-class specifications. In fact; power is so vital, that at one point, there was the contention made that with the high cost of power here in the Philippines, how were we going to stay competitive in the region? Viboy says that situation is rapidly improving.

Singapore enjoyed a reputation as the traditional and established hyperscale data center of the region; with Malaysia considered the region’s emerging hotspot for hyperscale growth. Major tech companies in Indonesia are setting up their own data centers, while Thailand is positioning itself as a digital and AI hub. We can’t be left behind, and it’s thanks to this vision of ePLDT and VITRO that we now have our own growing ‘footprint’ in this arena.

VITRO has three broad types of customers: the big cloud application providers, the private sector enterprises that are embarking on digitalization, and the public sector – with citizen data that’s both private and sensitive. It’s good to know we now have our own hyperscale data center, and don’t have to look outwards for this kind of service capability.