Alibaba Cloud eyes PH expansion

The wide-scale adoption of cloud technology in the Philippines made an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) firm optimistic of a strong expansion in its domestic operations, according to a report by Philippine News Agency.

In a briefing on Tuesday, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said the digitalization bid of the government is a major boost to cloud-based technology.

“In order to support the Philippines' cloud adoption, Alibaba plans to continue investments here,” said Alibaba-Philippines country manager Allen Guo.

IaaS is a form of cloud computing that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet.

The storage, network, servers and virtualization are provided by the IaaS vendor.

Guo explained that as more companies look for options to cut computing cost without sacrificing quality, Alibaba will introduce more innovations.

He said their self-developed infrastructure upgrades have resulted in an 8 percent year-on-year savings in computing cost per resource unit from April 1 to Nov. 11.

He said this year’s 11.11 (Nov. 11) global shopping festival “pushed the new boundaries for Allibaba Cloud, from innovations in green technology to continuing to trailblaze in cloud computing.”

“We know how significant 11.11 is in e-commerce and one of our yearly benchmarks is to make the festival as efficient and as green as imaginable,” he said.

The company has a data center in Manila, one of its 76 worldwide.

Guo said they are utilizing clean energy in their data centers to reduce energy consumption.

In a statement, the company said over 32 million kilowatt hours of electricity used by Alibaba Cloud during the 11.11 shopping frenzy came from renewable energy, higher by 30 percent on a daily basis average compared to last year.

Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said Monday the Philippines should fully embrace digitalization, especially in government processes and business models

“Digital transformation is at the core of our reform agenda,” she said during the Pilipinas Conference 2022 at Ayala Museum in Makati City, underscoring the need to leverage digital interventions such as the DBM's Open Government Partnership as part of the sustainable development programs under the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.