The Philippines has unveiled a national plan to invest $34.4 billion in AI infrastructure over the next seven years, betting that the technology will boost GDP by 12 per cent while insisting it will not undermine the country's vast outsourcing sector. The Philippines AI+ Infrastructure Masterplan (PAIIM) aims to expand the country's datacentre capacity thirtyfold and position it as a regional AI hub, though the sums involved remain modest compared with the spending of major global tech firms.

Under the plan, $18.2 billion is already covered by existing government and private funding, with the remaining $21 billion expected to come from private investment. National datacentre capacity is projected to grow from 50MW today to 1.5GW by 2033, housing around 152,000 GPUs, and the scheme is expected to create half a million AI-related jobs and train 1.3 million professionals. The government argues AI will complement rather than replace its business process outsourcing industry, freeing workers for higher-value, empathy-driven roles, though critics note this echoes long-standing—and previously unfulfilled—predictions about automation's limited impact on outsourcing jobs.