DATA CENTERS, PAX SILICA, AND ESTANCIA: What 124MW in Quezon City and 1,620 Hectares in Tarlac Mean for Northern Iloilo
DATA CENTERS, PAX SILICA, AND ESTANCIA: What 124MW in Quezon City and 1,620 Hectares in Tarlac Mean for Northern Iloilo
By Mark Morales | August 28, 2026 | Estancia, Iloilo
For a town where 5G is now live and fisherfolk track fish prices on Facebook, talk about data centers and a place called Pax Silica in Tarlac sounds far away. It is not.
Two things are happening at once that will affect internet speed, power rates, and jobs for Ilonggos: Globe is building the largest data center campus in Philippine history, and the government is preparing a 1,620-hectare industrial city for chip-making in New Clark City.
They are not the same project. Here is the complete, data-based explainer.
1. WHAT GLOBE ACTUALLY RUNS TODAY
Globe Telecom does not run data centers directly. Its joint venture with Ayala and Singapore’s ST Telemedia is called ST Telemedia Global Data Centres Philippines (STT GDC PH).
Verified specs on file:
Existing portfolio: 5 data centers operating with 22MW total IT capacity, more than 95% powered by renewable energy
Makati site: 1.2MW, ∼100 racks, 5kW-12kW per rack, built to Tier III standards
Flagship — STT Fairview: 124MW total campus capacity, 83,000 sqm gross floor area, designed to TIA-942 Rated-3 / Tier III. Fairview 1 building alone is 24,918 sqm with 28MW IT load and PUE below 1.4
Certification: Achieved G2 Design Certification on Sept 24, 2025 by International Data Center Authority
PLDT’s counterpart is VITRO Inc., which operates 11 data centers nationwide with combined capacity of nearly 100MW. Its hyperscale site VITRO Sta Rosa is 50MW on 5 hectares, and it has a planned 100MW site in General Trias / Trece Martires, Cavite worth P40 billion, construction 2026-2028.
2. THE NATIONAL RACE TO 1 GIGAWATT
The Philippines today has 150MW of live data center capacity.
Industry groups say they will build 473MW in the next two years once hyperscalers (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) commit to PH availability zones.
The Data Center Association of the Philippines (DCAP) target is 1 gigawatt by 2029. That jump — from 48MW in 2024 and 89MW in 2025 to 1,000MW in 2029 — requires about USD 18 billion in investments.
Why it matters: a single enterprise-grade data center can consume as much electricity as 2 million households. DICT estimates the New Clark City cluster alone will need 300 to 400MW of continuous power.
3. WHAT PAX SILICA REALLY IS — AND IS NOT
Pax Silica is not a data center park. It is a US-led, 23-member economic security initiative launched December 2025 to secure supply chains for AI, semiconductors, and critical minerals.
Philippine component:
Location: 1,620 hectares or 4,000 acres inside New Clark City, Capas, Tarlac
Purpose: Semiconductor packaging, electronics, AI computing, R&D, and mineral processing. BCDA specifically said it aims to make the Philippines a supplier of high-purity silica used in fiber-optic cables, not just a host for servers
Timeline: Philippines joined April 2026. Framework agreement targeted for November 2026. Site development in 3-5 years, first phase 500 hectares of the 1,620 hectares
Interest: About 30 companies have expressed interest, according to BCDA
DTI clarified: Pax Silica is not intended primarily for construction of massive AI data centers. The hub will have small support data centers, but its main output is chips and processed minerals, not colocation.
4. THE HARD NUMBERS: MONEY, JOBS, POWER, WATER
All figures below are from BCDA, DICT, and Senate hearing records as of August 2026:
Investments: Initial $10B, up to $70B if fully built
Jobs: 190,000 direct jobs (BCDA), 180,000 to 500,000 digital jobs (DICT), 130,000 to 290,000 direct + hundreds of thousands indirect (Senate briefing)
Taxes: P75 billion annual tax revenues, P180 billion total revenues per year at full operation after a decade
Power need: 3 gigawatts (3,000MW) — equivalent to ∼15% of Luzon’s current peak demand
Water need: 130 million liters per day — matching needs of 600,000 people, per Inquirer analysis of BCDA filings
Safeguards claimed: BCDA will build a dam or impounding area as water source and surplus water can be shared with community, will require Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC), and says government is developing power and water redundancy to maintain supply for surrounding communities
Senate Committee on Environment (Aug 14, 2026) scrutinized the project on water, energy, and displacement of indigenous communities and farmers.
5. PROS AND CONS FOR PEOPLE
Pros — verified:
Foreign investment and high-skilled jobs beyond call centers — chip packaging, materials science, AI engineering
Knowledge spread through Luzon Economic Corridor — BCDA says corridor from Subic-Clark-Manila-Batangas will benefit
Infrastructure: substations, fiber, water systems that host LGUs can also use
Cons — verified:
Utility-hungry: Data centers raise noise, water use, traffic, land suitability concerns. They consume water at an alarming rate for cooling
Few permanent jobs per building — global example cited in hearings: 4,000 construction jobs but only 300 permanent jobs for 13 buildings on 1,500 acres
For Pax Silica: strain on Central Luzon water and agriculture, potential lock-in to highest power rates in Asia, and 4.5 to 6 degree local temperature anomaly from heat island effect if cooling is not controlled
6. WILL INTERNET IN ESTANCIA GET FASTER?
You are already on Smart 5G — ESTANCIA is listed as live 5G coverage by Smart. Smart launched 5G Standalone in Iloilo City doubling upload speeds, and Globe reports 90% 5G coverage in Iloilo City.
But 5G tower still needs fiber backhaul. That backhaul comes from:
PDSCN — $150M Philippine Domestic Submarine Cable Network — longest domestic subsea cable — landed in Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Roxas City, Palompon, and Siargao
National Fiber Backbone — Phase 1: 1,245km Luzon, Phases 2-3: +1,781km across Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon, Bicol, Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Davao. Phases 4-5: Southern Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao with ongoing deployments in Western Visayas, funded by $280M World Bank loan, completion by 2027. DICT already noted visible improvements in Ajuy, Iloilo — next town to Estancia
Converge: Focusing expansion on Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao, 100,000+ ports in 2026, launching Super FiberX in Iloilo City June 2026 and available in Iloilo City + 26 other towns in Iloilo
Globe: Opening barangay broadband centers in Aklan, Capiz, Antique and Broadband Microshops in Iloilo. Official checker is checkavailability.globe.com.ph
Translation for Estancia: your 5G is fast today because the tower is already fiber-fed. Home fiber will follow when those Iloilo-Roxas backbone ports extend the last 15km to Estancia poblacion. Globe Cellsite and PLDT presence are already in Estancia, plus local ISP BITS in Balasan.
7. WHAT ESTANCIA SHOULD WATCH
Power rates: If 3GW for Pax Silica is built without new generation, Luzon and Visayas rates may rise. Watch ERC hearings.
Water: Northern Iloilo’s fishponds depend on stable water. The dam plan for Tarlac must be proven, not promised.
Jobs pipeline: TESDA and CHED have not yet listed specific chip packaging courses for Iloilo. If Pax Silica jobs require 2 years training, now is the time to align.
Fiber last mile: NFB is government backbone. Last-mile to your house is still Globe / Converge / BITS commercial decision. Check your barangay on their portals monthly.
Bottom line for Estancia Times readers: Globe’s 124MW in Fairview is real, under construction, and will make PH internet more resilient by 2026-2027. Pax Silica’s 1,620 hectares in Tarlac is still a plan — 30 firms interested, framework in November, dirt moving in 3-5 years. Both will force telcos to lay more fiber — including the cable that landed in Iloilo City and Roxas City — which is why you now have 5G in Estancia. Whether that becomes affordable home fiber and real jobs for Northern Iloilo depends on whether power and water safeguards are enforced.
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Sources: BCDA, DICT, STT GDC PH filings, DCAP, PNA, BusinessWorld, Philstar. All capacity, hectare, MW, and timeline figures from official releases as of August 2026.