BALANGA CITY, Bataan — A Dubai-based Filipino Master electrical engineer on Sunday expressed support for Bataan Governor Joet Garcia’s plan to convert the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) into a cloud computing data center facility.

In an interview, Engr. Jhun Lachica cited the number of cloud data centers that sprouted like mushrooms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Saudi Arabia and European countries.

Lachica, who is the Associate director of England-based Sutton Commissioning & Management Consultancy for the UAE, Oman, and Asia Pacific region, pointed out that these data centers from foreign countries are earning huge amounts of money, saying these (cloud data facilities) can earn more than the BNPP.

He also stressed that the governor’s proposal to convert the BNPP into a cloud computing center is an appropriate and timely move, considering the nature of the BNPP, which is already obsolete and no longer feasible in the modern-day context of the country.

Lachica cited reports that Cloud data centers (also called cloud computing data centers) house IT infrastructure resources for shared use by multiple customers, 1 such as Grab, and Business Process Outsourcing, through an internet connection.

He said that among the largest cloud data centers — called hyperscale data centers — are run by major cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, saying these companies have major data centers in every region of the world.