MANILA, Philippines – Manuel V. Pangilinan wants to sit down with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) to see how his sprawling infrastructure group can help build up Tarlac into something resembling a Philippine “Silicon Valley,” including through the government’s ambitious Pax Silica project.

Few local businessmen are as well positioned to pitch in. Companies chaired by Pangilinan span electricity through Meralco, telecommunications through PLDT, and data centers through VITRO – three pieces of infrastructure that an advanced manufacturing and technology hub would need.

“I think we’re trying to arrange for a meeting, for a briefing from BCDA, because I think they are at the forefront of the effort of the government about this project,” Pangilinan told reporters on Thursday, August 13.

“The basic question is: How do you recreate Silicon Valley in Tarlac?” he said. “What are the elements that should go into the creation of a Silicon Valley in Tarlac?”

Whatever shape that ecosystem takes, Pangilinan said it would have to be viewed over a “long-term horizon.” Yet some of the ingredients are already apparent. (READ: World Bank sees promise in Pax Silica. Can PH build more than another assembly hub?)

Power is one. Pangilinan said data centers need not just continuous electricity supply, but power rates competitive enough to meet the expectations of international customers. For a large technology buildout in Tarlac, additional generation may eventually be needed.

“I think you may need to put up a power plant in Tarlac,” Pangilinan said.

That potentially puts Meralco and the broader Pangilinan group in the picture. MVP had already expressed interest in helping build those foundations weeks earlier. On July 29, he described the idea of creating a Philippine Silicon Valley as “great,” but warned that the country first had to assemble the engineers, capital, infrastructure, and higher-value industries that make a genuine technology cluster work.

“If they need power, Meralco will build a power plant. We need to build data centers, as well. So, we have to put the pieces together,” Pangilinan said then. “It depends [on] how ambitious we want to be.”

Water is another constraint, particularly for large data centers that require cooling. Pangilinan contrasted Tarlac with Metro Manila, where the two major concessionaires already provide relatively reliable supply.

“I don’t know the water supply situation in Tarlac,” he said.

Then there is connectivity.

PLDT Enterprise head Patricio “Blums” Pineda said prospective Pax Silica locators involved in advanced manufacturing would require private mobile networks, 5G, and Internet-of-Things infrastructure not only inside factories, but across their supply chains.

“When you look at the potential locators in something like a Pax Silica when it does come into fruition, they will need this type of connectivity for advanced manufacturing,” Pineda said. “They will need this type of connectivity for the ports that are going to service the supply chain.”

Pax Silica, highlighted by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his latest State of the Nation Address, is envisioned as an advanced manufacturing and technology ecosystem in New Clark City with AI at its core.

Data center in Tarlac?

But Pangilinan’s remarks extended beyond Pax Silica itself. He was also speaking more broadly about Tarlac’s potential as a technology hub, including the possibility of locating future data centers there.

“I think definitely data centers will be part of that overall development of Tarlac,” he said.

That possibility is already being explored within the PLDT group. Victor Genuino, president of PLDT’s data center arm VITRO, confirmed that Tarlac is among several locations being considered for its next facility, alongside General Trias in Cavite and sites closer to Metro Manila. No location has been selected.

Tarlac could be particularly suitable if the facility is built for AI training. Genuino explained that data centers handling gaming, financial transactions, and other consumer-facing services have to stay relatively close to users to minimize latency. AI training workloads, however, are less sensitive to distance.

“If the data center that you need to build is, for example, for AI training, hindi mo kailangan ng latency ‘yun. Puwedeng malayo ‘yun (you don’t need to worry as much about latency. It can be farther away),” Genuino said.

The search for another site comes as PLDT sees stronger momentum in the data center business more broadly.

“The data centers are doing well because you have local locators and foreign locators that are starting to come in,” Pangilinan said. “We’ve become aware of the potential of the Philippines as a data center hub.”

PLDT said its data center segment grew 13% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, driven by colocation demand from hyperscalers, enterprises, and the public sector. It is also the largest data center operator in the Philippines, with a 33% market share by live colocation IT capacity. 

VITRO flagship project in Sta. Rosa is designed for 36 megawatts of IT capacity, with 10 MW already built out and about half of that initial capacity committed to customers, according to Genuino. PLDT’s official H1 results put the group’s currently available IT-ready capacity at close to 34 MW across its nine data centers.

The company also sees another source of demand from Executive Order No. 119, which establishes a data residency framework requiring certain government data to be kept in the Philippines.

Genuino called the policy “very, very important for the growth of the data center business,” saying VITRO also sees promise from incoming hyperscalers and continued enterprise digitalization. – Rappler.com