AI agents are moving from answering questions to continuously executing tasks, extending growth opportunities from chipmakers and cloud service providers to large AI data center operators that deliver complete AI computing infrastructure, power resources, cooling systems, and high-speed network connectivity. The Philippines' second-largest telecom operator, Globe Telecom Inc, is betting on this shift and hopes to develop its data center joint venture into its next billion-dollar business: the company plans to invest at least $1 billion in capital expenditure by 2027, primarily to continue expanding its data business. Meanwhile, Mynt — the parent company of GCash and Globe Telecom's fintech subsidiary Mynt Inc. — plans to raise approximately 60 billion pesos through an IPO, which could set a record on the Philippine stock exchange. The telecom giant Globe's growth strategy thus covers both digital finance and computing infrastructure.

Globe's investment logic at the AI infrastructure level can be summarized as competing for "computing power deployment rights" — combining reliable power supply, deliverable server rooms, high-density cooling, and cross-border connectivity to capture the computing power sales and leasing demands of AI cloud providers as well as the large-scale deployment of practical AI applications for enterprise clients. Last week, two emerging cloud players in the U.S. stock market — CoreWeave and Nebius — saw significant stock price gains after JPMorgan and BNP Paribas upgraded their ratings and target prices, sufficient to reflect the market's sustained focus on computing infrastructure service providers. Globe's data center joint venture mainly participates in the server room infrastructure segment, and its value realization depends more directly on customer signings, power system stability, AI computing capacity delivery, and post-leasing profitability.

This strategy already has operational-level support. In August, Globe disclosed that the first floor of Fairview Phase 1 had its server room capacity subscribed by customers, with subsequent floors undergoing commissioning and development, supporting high-density AI deployment and liquid cooling requirements. The joint venture also signed a ten-year renewable energy power supply agreement with MPower, covering a total of 40.5 megawatts of power demand for the Fairview and Cavite facilities. These developments correspond to customer demand and energy procurement respectively, but future returns still depend on construction progress, power costs, rack utilization rates, and financing conditions. For the Philippines, regional capacity spillover creates opportunities, while submarine cables, land, GPU/ASIC supply scale, power supply, and compliance capabilities determine whether orders can truly be retained. AI enthusiasm provides growth expectations, but delivering on schedule and generating rental cash flow is the threshold for valuation realization.

From Connecting Users to Integrating AI Computing Resources: Globe Seeks Its Next Billion-Dollar Business

Globe Telecom is betting on the AI boom, hoping to develop its data center joint venture into its next billion-dollar business. At the same time, its fintech affiliate Mynt is moving toward an initial public offering that could set a Philippine record. Globe President and CEO Carl Raymond Cruz said in an interview on Monday that the company plans to invest at least $1 billion by 2027, primarily to expand its data business. Over the next few years, capital expenditure is expected to equal 23% to 28% of revenue. "We need to continue investing in AI super networks," he said in the interview. "We will continue to do so, but we will be highly prudent in screening investment areas, clearly prioritizing them, and mainly focusing on data and the digital economy-related fields."

As AI drives a global race to expand computing power, the Philippines' second-largest telecom company is looking beyond its traditional business to find the next stage of growth momentum. Cloud service providers and tech companies seeking to meet surging demand are driving billions of dollars of capital into this industry across Asia. Globe has already established a foothold in this area through ST Telemedia Global Data Centres Philippines, a joint venture formed by Globe with its parent company Ayala Corporation and Singapore Technologies Telemedia. Cruz said the data center operator runs five facilities and is expected to reach 30 to 35 megawatts of capacity by the end of 2026, then increase to 124 megawatts over the following three years through building new facilities and expanding existing ones. He said taking this joint venture public is one of the further expansion financing options being considered. "The market will give quite high valuations to any business related to the digital economy."

As shown in the chart above, Globe places its data business at the core of its massive capital expenditure plan — data-related projects account for the majority of capital spending. Source: Globe Telecom's first-half 2026 analyst briefing. He said capacity constraints in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia mean the Philippines will become the next destination for data center customers. "In the coming years, as AI develops, you may see data traffic grow three to five times." However, a report by BMI, a subsidiary of Fitch Solutions, noted that the Philippines cannot rely solely on demand spilling over from Malaysia and Indonesia. To win large cloud computing projects, the Philippines needs to leverage its submarine cable advantages connecting to developed Asian markets while ensuring power and land supply. The Philippines has 44 data centers, ranking second-to-last among Asian markets tracked by BMI, with approximately 140 megawatts of operational capacity and another 264 megawatts under construction or planned.

Domestically, Globe is working to catch up in a market dominated by competitor PLDT. PLDT's data center subsidiary VITRO is seeking to raise up to 24.2 billion pesos, or approximately $387 million, through a real estate investment trust IPO. Converge ICT Solutions is also expanding its own business footprint. The Philippine government is seeking to attract more data center investment into the country. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed an executive order in July requiring the government's most sensitive digital information to remain under Philippine jurisdiction, a move that could boost demand for local facilities. Before betting on data centers, Globe had already achieved success with its key subsidiary Mynt. Mynt is the parent company of GCash, the Philippines' largest mobile wallet, and was valued at $5 billion in its previous funding round in 2024. Its IPO is expected to raise approximately 60 billion pesos next month, potentially becoming the largest initial public offering in the Philippines. Cruz said Globe plans to remain Mynt's single largest shareholder as Mynt expands credit, investment, savings, and insurance services.

Strong Demand Linked to AI Applications Must Ultimately Translate into Server Room Cash Flow

Globe's data center joint venture mainly participates in the server room infrastructure segment, and its value realization depends more directly on customer signings, 24/7 power supply stability, AI computing capacity delivery, and post-leasing profitability. Strong demand linked to AI applications must ultimately translate into server room cash flow to demonstrate the strong growth value of data center operators. AI agents are moving from answering questions to continuously executing tasks, extending growth opportunities from chipmakers and cloud service providers to large AI data center operators that provide complete AI computing infrastructure, power resources, cooling systems, and high-speed network connectivity. Muse and Astra are expected to further expand the scope of AI agent usage, and the massive expansion of AI inference workloads they bring will simultaneously increase demand for model inference, tool execution, and state management, while intensifying competitive pressure on some software companies.

Accelerators such as GPUs and TPUs handle model computation; CPUs run browsers, virtual machines, product searches, database queries, and transaction orchestration; HBM and server DRAM carry model data, context, and concurrent working environments; enterprise-grade SSDs store product indices, task records, and persistent states, while high-speed networks and optical interconnects support distributed data exchange. The agents represented by Muse and the already-released GPT-6 Astra are expanding the actual scope of work AI can undertake. The most fundamental change at the underlying level focuses on this: a single user request can trigger multiple rounds of inference, browser operations, code execution, and result verification, driving infrastructure demand from model computation to task execution and state preservation. Meta's technical documentation clearly states that Muse provides users with independent cloud virtual machines equipped with CPU, memory, and storage, and supports parallel sub-agents and scheduled tasks. Therefore, GPUs handle neural network computation, CPUs handle tool execution and task scheduling, and memory and storage preserve runtime states, files, and long-term memory. When active users, task frequency, and concurrency scale expand, demand may further transmit on a large scale and rapidly to servers, networks, and server room capacity.