Why the Philippines should build its own AI infrastructure

If the Philippines aspires to be a producer rather than a passive consumer in the AI economy, it must treat compute, data, and connectivity as strategic infrastructure.

- NIGHT OWL ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

Across Southeast Asia, peers are already moving at infrastructure scale: Singapore's National AI Strategy 2.0 centers shared national compute; Malaysia has partnered with Nvidia and YTL Power to set up AI supercomputing in Johor; and Indonesia is backing an Indosat-Nvidia AI center in Central Java. These are not pilots but platform bets that anchor research, entrepreneurship, and exportable digital services.

The Philippines has begun to lay pieces of this foundation. The Department of Trade and Industry adopted the National AI Strategy Roadmap 2.0 on July 3, 2024 and launched the Center for AI Research (CAIR), supported by additional budget allocations. In parallel, private players have commissioned new capacity: PLDT's VITRO Sta. Rosa-an "AI ready" hyperscale facility designed for up to 50 MW-Amazon's Manila Local Zone to cut latency for cloud workloads, and Equinix's entry via the acquisition (and in 2025, completion) of three data centers to deepen interconnection. What is missing is not momentum but a coherent plan to stitch these assets into a national AI infrastructure.