Dreaming in hyperscale!

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. Akey 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.

- PHILIP CU UNJIENG

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 fewmonths 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.