PH data centers were underused before the AI boom, an AI industry group says
Michelle Alarcon of the Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines wants someone to show where the demand numbers came from before the country builds more.
At a press briefing in Makati City, Michelle Alarcon said the Philippines should work out how much artificial intelligence computing it actually needs before it goes on building data centers. Alarcon is president and co-founder of the Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines. A data center is a building full of rented computers, and the country is being promoted as a good place to put more of them.
Her point was not that the buildings are bad. It was that the numbers behind them have not been shown. Alarcon said data center use in the Philippines was already relatively low even before everyone got interested in AI, which makes the plans for new capacity worth a second look.
Our question is not so much a reaction but more of, where did their demand projections for data centers come from? How are corporations using that?
Why it matters
This is the AI industry in the Philippines asking the question, not a critic from outside it. Alarcon listed the things AI actually runs on before any of it reaches a normal person: internet, electricity, water and data. Her example was one most people in Metro Manila will recognize immediately.
In Metro Manila, you don't even get stable Internet if it rains. Can they access AI and be leveraged from AI if that is the situation?
The catch to watch
This is a question, not a position. Alarcon said the group has discussed Pax Silica, the government's planned tech hub in New Clark City, but has not written a position paper on it, and she said that if investors want to build here, that is fine. She was also speaking at a briefing for her own group's conference, AI Con Manila, set for August 25 in Makati City. So treat this as the local AI industry asking for the math, and watch whether anyone shows it.