Geolette Marie Esguerra

Article (news)

VITRO Santa Rosa

<p>When the news broke in late April that the VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center had been launched and was operational, the significance of having the first 50 MW hyperscale data center built specifically for Artificial Intelligence workloads may have been lost in translation. I don’t consider myself a techie; and so quite frankly, while I appreciated that there was something momentous about the development, if you asked me to explain why, I would just end up parroting the news release or offer up the requisite buzzwords. </p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:541px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233388228Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">ePLDT’s VITRO Data Center at Sta. Rosa, Laguna.</span></span></span></div><p>So I was happy to be allowed to spend an afternoon with ePLDT and VITRO, Inc. President and CEO Viboy Genuino. The challenge laid before him was to make a tech simpleton like me appreciate what the VSR represents, and why it’s intimately tied up with national connectivity, resilience, and innovation. </p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:300px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233413146Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center.jpeg" style="width:300px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Victor ‘Viboy’ Genuino, President and CEO of ePLDT and VITRO, Inc.</span></span></span></div><p>To set the context, Mr. Genuino first spoke about how it is digital infrastructure that connects us to the world. Submarine communication cable systems carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea; and here in the Philippines, we’re talking PLDT, Globe, Converge, and the BCDA that are operating cable landing stations. For PLDT, there are three major systems; Jupiter, the Asian Direct Cable, and APRICOT. In the case of APRICOT, there are landing stations in Davao, in Baler, and then on to Japan and the USA. It’s expected that these systems will triple in the next five years. </p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:541px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233430326Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center Servers 2.jpeg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">A photo of the Data Hall, where client servers and data are kept.</span></span></span></div><p>With the millions of kilometers of fibre, all the data accumulated has to meet somewhere. Whether from your phone, your apps, data pulled from the cloud; all this information and data have to be stored somewhere. </p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:541px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233449727Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center Equipment.jpeg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">The Data Center grade genset from Cummins.</span></span></span></div><p>And that’s where VITRO Sta Rosa (VSR), a Hyperscale grade data center of 50 MW comes into play. Hyperscale computing is critical for handling big data, cloud computing, and Artificial Intelligence workloads. Hyperscale infrastructure is designed to go beyond typical enterprise data centers, often encompassing thousands of servers in a single environment. The architecture of a hyperscale data center provides high throughput, fault tolerance, and availability to support demanding applications. </p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:541px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233467386Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center Servers.jpeg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">These blue and yellow equipment are the UPS (uninterruptible power supply).</span></span></span></div><p>Now if that still sounds like highly technical, press release jargon, I’ll freely quote President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who was visibly impressed and excited during the April launch. </p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:541px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233481806Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center President Marcos.jpeg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">From April 2025, at the Grand Launch of the VITRO Santa Rosa; led by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and PLDT Chairman and President Manuel V. Pangilinan. </span></span></span></div><p>Likening the data center to a warehouse, our President remarked, “Instead of boxes of products, we store digital information—such as emails, videos, business records, government files, even the apps on your phone. It keeps everything running safely and securely, twenty-four hours seven days a week. Fully energized, Artificial Intelligence-ready. Built to support Hyperscale, cloud, and enterprise workloads; in other words, the Googles, the Amazons, the Facebooks of this world.” The President joked about how even relationship statuses and soft launches could be stored.</p><p>Mr. Genuino then talks about the scale of VITRO, how its physical space is equal to three Mall of Asia’s. The power density, the liquid cooling required for these data halls, and the building to world-class specifications, are impressed upon me. It’s not just any core and shell structure; it has to withstand magnitude 8 earthquakes, and it’s carrier-agnostic. And Viboy breaks into a grin, talking of ‘frenemies’ and how the data center is carrier-neutral so that they’re open to all comers who will need their ‘storage’ services. </p><p>There are three broad types of customers for VSR. First are the hyperscalers, the big cloud application providers such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Second would be the private sector enterprises that are undergoing digital transformation. Third would be the public sector—and one can include SSS, GSIS, and PhilHealth with their citizen data that’s both sensitive and private, as prime users of the VITRO service.</p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:541px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1757233498926Metro.Style VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center MVP.jpeg" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">From April 2025, at the Grand Launch of the VITRO Santa Rosa; led by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and PLDT Chairman and President Manuel V. Pangilinan. </span></span></span></div><p>Mr. Genuino advocates for a stronger and better-enforced data localization policy, one that would require digital data collected in a country to be stored and processed within that country’s borders, in order to comply with local privacy laws and ensure government access. For Viboy, this would be a catalyst for more to come and invest. As he comments, we are so preoccupied with physical borders and the West Philippine Sea issue, we’ve downplayed data security and the metaphorical ‘borders’ that exist in the cloud and in digitization. Being cyber-hacked, data being exfiltrated, should also be concerns that we are vigilant about. </p><p>Mention is made of the steep power requirements for maintaining a Hyperscale data center, and the often invoked high cost of electricity and power in the Philippines. Will we be competitive when pitched against data centers located in Malaysia or Singapore? Viboy would debunk the notion that we’re the most expensive in the region. There is growing parity now that subsidies that exist in other countries are being reduced or outright taken away. Furthermore, in line with the broader Sustainability objectives of the PLDT Group, VITRO Sta. Rosa has 35% of its requirements coming from renewable sources. The hope is to eventually increase this to 60%. The Meralco PowerGen Corporation will be playing a vital role in making that scenario come to reality.</p><p>Mr. Genuino takes obvious pride in stating that VITRO is the first company to use the latest version of the NVIDIA GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). For those who want to make NVIDIA their ‘sandbox,’ and test proof of concept, VITRO is ready to charge by the hour. AI applications that are practical, useful, such as talkbots presently being deployed by PLDT, are part of the services that can be availed of at ePLDT. For MSMEs, there’s cloud migration, optimization models for higher productivity, and so on. There’s even a VITRO Academy course now being offered in five universities. </p><p>Technology and infrastructure are not barriers to the Philippines taking a prime position in the arena of Hyperscale data centers. It is governance, and the requisite guardrails on its use, especially when it comes to AI, that have to be addressed and made more effective. VITRO Sta. Rosa will take on a crucial role in advancing the cause, and Viboy Genuino is honored to be tasked with making this happen. </p><div><br/></div><p>Special thanks to Julie Carceller and Erica Araullo for helping arrange the meeting with Mr. Viboy Genuino, Rizel Raganit for providing several of the photos used in this feature, and Viboy for making the time to help the author see the digital light.</p>

<p><i>We spent the afternoon with ePLDT and VITRO, Inc. President and CEO Viboy Genuin, to talk about the VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center</i></p>

We spent the afternoon with ePLDT and VITRO, Inc. President and CEO Viboy Genuin, to talk about the VITRO Santa Rosa (VSR) Data Center

Living in Digital Dreams, and Hyperscale Reality!

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Living in Digital Dreams, and Hyperscale Reality!

Philip Cu Unjieng

Published September 06, 2025 06:00 PM PHT

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Updated September 07, 2025 04:27 PM PHT

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VITRO Santa Rosa

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