Philippines largest tech hub could rise on BNPP site

MANILA, Philippines — The 357-hectare Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) complex is being eyed as the location for the country’s biggest integrated digital hub, housing a data center and tech schools for 4,000 students.

A proposed master development plan for the BNPP seeks to convert the facility into a mixed-use property featuring a 70-megawatt data center that would be built in three phases.

The plan, drawn by HB Mayuga and Associates and shared with The STAR, showed that the first phase of the project will retrofit BNPP’s reactor silo into a 20-MW data center.

The second and third phases involve the construction of another 50-MW data center powered by renewable energy. The data centers in the hub will rely on solar panels and wind turbines built on the site.

The project aims to put up a mix of solar and wind facilities that could generate as much as 325 MW. Likewise, it will house a 1,030-MW battery energy storage system and an optional pumped storage hydroelectric facility.

To support talent requirements, the project eyes to attract the largest information technology universities in the Philippines, promising them a space enough for 4,000 students.

Apart from this, there will be commercial spaces, residential units and retail buildings to scale up the economic viability of what would become the country’s largest integrated IT hub.

The Philippines currently has a data center capacity of 125 MW, one of the lowest in Asia and the Pacific, and this is dragging the country’s prospects to become a digital powerhouse.

 Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda wants to pitch the project to President Marcos, believing it would be a game-changing initiative for his digital push.

 Aguda said the project could even be done within the Marcos administration if it is approved this year.

 According to Aguda, Bataan is the perfect site for an integrated IT hub given its proximity to Poro Point in La Union, where a cable landing station is built. Paired with a data center, the station can receive and transmit information at lightning speeds, improving connectivity quality in the country.