Two hyperscalers headquartered in the United States are conducting due diligence on Philippine sites, each eyeing an initial capacity of about 200 megawatts (MW) over five years, as the government launched a master plan meant to strip away the guesswork that has slowed such investments.
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Aguda said the two firms, which he declined to name, have so far examined only the Bataan-Clark and Batangas-Aurora corridors identified in the Philippine Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Master Plan (PAIIM) 2026-2033.
‘It’s mostly in Luzon,’ Aguda told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of the master plan on Tuesday, adding that the two companies have looked at those two corridors alone.
Each is initially considering roughly 200 MW, he said, clarifying that it is ‘over a period of five years-it’s not in one go.’
Aguda said the master plan compresses a process that normally takes hyperscalers six to nine months, when their technical teams arrive in the country and begin hunting for power, land and other requirements on their own.
With the plan, he said, everything they need to check is already mapped out along corridors, leaving them to simply choose. A hyperscaler typically looks for three locations in a country it enters, he added.
Aguda recalled that other hyperscalers struggled to obtain information last year. That information now sits in the master plan, he said.
Asked if the two firms could enter next year, Aguda said: ‘Fingers crossed. At least it accelerates their ability to decide right away on whether they’ll establish here or not.’
He clarified that the corridors are not single sites.
‘It’s a corridor. Your power source can be in Bataan, but the facility is in Clark. Or your power source is Nueva Ecija, but the facility is in Clark,’ Aguda explained, when asked whether Clark’s power supply could carry hyperscale demand on its own.
Power, he said, is the most critical requirement for the locators.
No bidding yet
Auction for projects under the master plan has not started.
‘We need to find a locator first. If a locator is serious enough by this year, we might start it early next year,’ Aguda said.
Whether the two hyperscalers will file public-private partnership (PPP) proposals is up to them, he said, explaining that a PPP applies when there is a public component. If a locator will serve the private sector, it need not submit one.
Aguda said private capital makes the program more durable. Private contracts are usually multi-year and cross administrations, with Aguda saying: ‘So they’re not susceptible to political change.’
The master plan is not funded under the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
‘Actually, it’s not in the GAA. It’s not in the 2027 GAA,’ Aguda said, though supporting infrastructure, such as power and water, is already covered because plants built for the grid serve everyone.
‘What I’m aspiring for is next year, when the hyperscalers come in, no government funds go out. It’s all private investment for now.’
Investment requirement
PAIIM estimates a total investment requirement of $34.4 billion through 2033, DICT Director Gemma Baysic said in her presentation.
Of that, about $13.5 billion is expected from public investment and around $21 billion from the private sector. Some $18.2 billion is already associated with existing national programs, particularly connectivity and energy, leaving an incremental requirement of roughly $16.3 billion-about $6.2 billion public and $10 billion private.
The largest share, about $14.6 billion, goes to AI compute and data centers.
‘Government’s role is not necessarily to build and operate everything itself, but deploy public resources so that we can crowd in much larger private investment,’ Baysic said. ‘Government builds the foundation, the private sector helps build and scale.’
The plan targets 1.5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity by 2033, from an estimated baseline of only around 50 MW. It also seeks to prepare the country’s 1.3 million information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) professionals for AI-enabled services while generating more than 500,000 AI-related jobs.
‘PAIIM does not envision AI replacing the Philippine workforce,’ Baysic said. ‘The objective is to help our workforce move up the value chain, allowing AI to handle repetitive and data-intensive functions, while Filipino talent increasingly moves towards complex, creative, analytical, and high-value work.’
The plan is organized around six pillars: connectivity infrastructure; AI compute and data centers; energy, water and sustainability; AI workforce and development; policy and regulation; and demand creation.
Its corridor-based architecture deliberately avoids concentrating capacity in Metro Manila. Clark-Bataan is envisioned as the primary anchor, combining hyperscale-ready land, energy infrastructure and west-facing international connectivity.
Batangas-Aurora is designed as a dual-coast international gateway, with Batangas facing Southeast Asia and Aurora’s Pacific geography opening opportunities for trans-Pacific systems toward Northeast Asia and North America.
Subic and Calabarzon are positioned as supporting hubs, with Cebu, Iloilo and Davao City in the pipeline as future regional nodes.
Baysic said the Philippines is at par with Singapore and just behind Thailand in AI policy capacity, placing it second in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-but that the benchmarking exercise also exposed under-provisioned AI infrastructure as the country’s biggest gap.
Aguda said the plan is an ‘answer’ to warnings that the Philippines is lagging in the regional AI buildout. From a policy and regulatory standpoint, he said, the country ranks high. What it lacks is actual infrastructure. If the country does not build it, he said, it will be left behind.
Competition
The biggest risk to the plan, according to Aguda, is that other countries are chasing the same investors.
‘We’re competing with other countries. Our challenge is there are countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia. They also want to court the same hyperscalers that we’re trying to court,’ he said. ‘Other than that, we’re ready. The issue will just be how the other countries prepare for it.’
Aguda said the master plan runs parallel to Pax Silica, a trade bloc of 23 or 24 countries. The master plan lays out where power and water are available, he said, while Pax Silica covers the actual trade agreements. A US-based hyperscaler would likely fall under the Pax Silica framework, though countries outside the bloc may also want to set up hyperscalers in the Philippines.
He distinguished the two, noting that Pax Silica involves specific locators already in the program and is not purely AI but manufacturing.
ADB backing
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which supported the plan’s preparation, said the endorsement signals that AI infrastructure has moved out of the niche technology category.
‘It really is a national development priority. It is central to competitiveness, it’s central to productivity, to public service delivery, and also the Philippines’ position in the regional digital economy,’ ADB Director General Winfried Wicklein said.
He added: ‘The countries that benefit most will be those that move early, move early to build the right foundations,’ noting that the launch ‘is clearly not the end of planning; it’s the start of implementation.’
ADB Country Director Andrew Jeffries said execution and the parallel development of supply and demand will determine the outcome. On supply, he said, AI infrastructure requires suitable land, reliable power and water, streamlined permitting and an enabling investment climate.
‘The digital and AI ecosystem cannot thrive on infrastructure alone,’ Jeffries said, citing the need for demand from government, the IT-BPM sector, research institutions, universities and the private sector. ‘Coordination is key, so to ensure that projects aren’t only built, but they’re utilized, they’re scaled, and they’re sustained over the long term.’
Baysic said PAIIM is the second national master plan approved by the Economic Development Council this year, alongside the National Digital Connectivity Plan, and that both are the first to pass through the standards and processes established under Executive Order 52.
‘PAIIM is not a DICT project; it is a national transformation agenda,’ she said. ‘And now, the real work begins: turning this plan into infrastructure, investment, jobs, and opportunities for the Filipino.’