Women working at the forefront of Southeast Asia’s energy transition are warning that the Philippines’ push to become an artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse must not replicate the inequalities that have shadowed past waves of industrial development.
Women remain underrepresented in shaping Southeast Asia’s energy transition despite often bearing the greatest impacts of climate change, energy insecurity and rising household costs.
As the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr seeks to expand the Philippines’ role in the global AI supply chain through the newly announced Pax Silica initiative, women advocates say the real question is not only how fast the country can scale up, but who will benefit from the expansion — and who may be left behind.
During his fifth state of the nation address at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City, Marcos said Pax Silica would create an AI-centered ecosystem that would bring quality jobs, boost industrial competitiveness and revitalize the economy.
Led by the United States, the initiative aims to position the country as a strategic hub for critical minerals, semiconductor manufacturing and energy infrastructure. Proponents say it could unlock millions of dollars in foreign assistance and attract up to US$100 billion in private investment.
(From left) Isabella Suarez, head of engagement for Southeast Asia, TransitionZero; Anna Rellama, principal, Arthur D Little Southeast Asia; and Hannah Chan, legal researcher, ClientEarth Asia, say climate justice, gender equity and community participation should underpin the country’s emerging AI and digital infrastructure.
However, the proposed project has already triggered backlash, with protesters and police clashing outside the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City on 22 July during US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. Activists warned that the plan could fuel land, environmental and community harms, especially if it drives a large semiconductor and AI hub in New Clark City.
Experts interviewed by Eco-Business said the concerns point to a deeper issue: whether the AI buildout can be shaped around a just transition from the start.
“Just transition principles can’t be retrofitted onto agreements like this,” Isabella Suarez, head of engagement for Southeast Asia at climate tech nonprofit TransitionZero, told Eco-Business. “The questions that need to be considered from the beginning are: who holds equity in these developments, what happens to workers and communities displaced by the industrial shift, and whether local supply chains — not just foreign capital — are positioned to benefit.”
AI’s energy demand raises new questions
AI is often discussed as a digital revolution, but its foundations are physical. Data centres, semiconductor fabrication plants and advanced manufacturing facilities require enormous amounts of reliable electricity, meaning decisions about AI infrastructure are also decisions about the country’s energy future, noted Suarez.
Those decisions matter as women account for only about 8 per cent of the Asean energy workforce and occupy fewer than one in five leadership positions, while just 19.3 per cent of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates across the region are women.
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Gender equity still tends to get treated as a box to check rather than as something load-bearing. That’s the wrong framing. Communities that are more equitable in how they distribute resources and decision-making are demonstrably more resilient.
Isabella Suarez, head of engagement for Southeast Asia, TransitionZero
“Initiatives like Pax Silica could significantly accelerate the Philippines’ push into digital infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and energy systems — but the sequencing matters enormously,” Suarez said. “The country can’t afford to replicate the pattern we’ve seen elsewhere, where data centres and semiconductor fabs get built first and the clean energy grid gets treated as a downstream problem to solve later.”
A single hyperscale data centre can consume as much electricity as a mid-sized city, Suarez stressed.“If Pax Silica drives that kind of demand into the Philippines without clean energy being able to ramp up to meet it, it risks locking in fossil fuel dependence at exactly the moment the country should be moving away from it. That would concentrate the burden on communities that already carry disproportionate environmental risk.”
Anna Rellama, principal at advisory firm Arthur D Little Southeast Asia, said the initiative also presents an opportunity to strengthen the country’s industrial competitiveness while accelerating its clean energy transition.
“This could mobilise significant capital toward the Philippines, generate higher-skilled jobs, support local economic growth, and potentially create social uplift in the areas that will host these investments,” she said.
Technology companies and data centre operators are often among the earliest adopters of renewable electricity procurement, Rellama added, meaning investments under Pax Silica could also “accelerate renewable energy investments, grid upgrades, and new energy solutions in the Philippines.”
Authorities have said a Saudi firm plans to develop a 500-megawatt solar farm in New Clark City, while Japanese and South Korean companies have expressed interest in clean energy projects for the Pax Silica hub.
But she cautioned that rapid industrialisation would also increase pressure on land, water and electricity systems.
“That is where climate justice and just transition principles need to come in,” Rellama said. “They should be treated as central to the discussion, not as an afterthought. If these investments are meant to support the country’s industrial future, then the benefits also need to be felt more broadly than selectively.”
Women remain underrepresented in Southeast Asia’s energy transition, making up just 8 per cent of Asean’s energy workforce and fewer than one in five leadership positions. Image: United Nations in Thailand, via Flickr.
A just transition starts with people
For the women helping shape Southeast Asia’s energy transition, the debate extends beyond electricity grids and investment flows. They underscored that the resilience of AI-powered economies will depend on whether governments address longstanding social inequalities alongside technological development.
“There is more awareness of this now than there was a decade ago, but awareness and implementation are not the same thing,” Suarez said.
“Gender equity still tends to get treated as a box to check rather than as something load-bearing. That’s the wrong framing. Communities that are more equitable in how they distribute resources and decision-making are demonstrably more resilient. That’s not a values argument; it’s an empirical one.”
Climate disasters illustrate those inequalities most clearly.
“Disasters don’t create new inequities; they reveal and amplify the ones already present,” Suarez said. “Women carrying disproportionate unpaid care work are largely invisible in economic measurement and policy design during normal times. During a climate disaster and in the recovery period, that invisible labour becomes even more critical, and even more unacknowledged.”
Rellama said governments and businesses have become better at recognising gender equity in climate and energy strategies, but implementation continues to lag.
“The harder part is implementation, because it is one thing to include gender and social equity in a framework, and another to make sure they influence actual decisions on project design, affordability, access, community engagement, and long-term benefits,” she said.
She added that attracting AI investment should not be viewed as an end in itself.
“The goal should not only be to attract investment but to make sure that this investment strengthens the country’s long-term competitiveness, energy transition, and resilience — without transferring the costs to communities that are least able to absorb them.”
Building safeguards
For Hannah Chan, legal researcher at environmental law charity ClientEarth, those principles must be embedded long before construction begins.
“The hope is that this agreement will propel the Philippines to move from lower-value activities in supply chains such as assembly and packaging, into higher-value segments of the chain,” she said. “It is critical to consider climate justice and just transition principles early on, and ensure that certain safeguards are in place — embedded, even, in legal documents — from the planning stage.”
That means asking difficult questions before projects move forward.
“Which workers and communities… are most at risk of displacement?” Chan asked. “How does the government plan to support local workers, for instance through upskilling them for high-tech jobs, reskilling, job placement support, social safety nets, and access to education and health assistance?”
Women remain underrepresented in technical industries that stand to benefit from AI investments, making equitable access to education, training and higher-skilled employment a key consideration as the country moves up global technology value chains.
Chan also cautioned against measuring success solely by investment announcements.
“Will short-term benefits while deepening inequality in the long run?” she said. “For example, will the project mine transition minerals in nearby provinces while simultaneously destroying biodiversity and ancestral lands, which may later increase risks such as landslides and flooding and cause irreversible harm that future generations will have to bear?”
She stressed that meaningful participation must extend beyond public consultations.
“Were local government units and indigenous communities given a voice during negotiations?” she asked. “Were stakeholders given real opportunities to engage within reasonable timeframes? Will they be given opportunities to continuously engage with decision-makers, and is this commitment or guarantee embedded in the legal agreements?”
Suarez agreed that participation should begin well before formal consultations.
“Communities shouldn’t enter the process at the consultation stage because by then the substantive decisions have usually already been made,” she said. “Meaningful inclusion means being present when terms are being set, not when they’re being explained.”
The choices that shape the AI economy
The experts said the success of Pax Silica will depend less on the agreement itself than on the conditions attached to its implementation.
“The central question isn’t whether the Philippines participates in initiatives, it’s what conditions it negotiates,” Suarez said. “Industrial demand of this scale can either drive renewable energy expansion or become the justification for another round of fossil fuel procurement.”
She also warned that AI-driven industrial growth should not come at the expense of ordinary consumers.
“Large industrial electricity consumers can reshape pricing dynamics for ordinary households if grid expansion and cost recovery aren’t structured carefully,” Suarez said. “A transition that works for industrial growth but drives up energy costs for everyone else isn’t a success.”
Chan noted that existing policies, including the Renewable Energy Act and the Green Energy Option Programme, already provide mechanisms to steer new AI infrastructure towards renewable electricity. Within economic zones, authorities could also require data centres and advanced manufacturing facilities to integrate on-site renewable generation and battery storage into project design.
As governments across Southeast Asia compete to secure a place in the AI economy, the Philippines has an opportunity to chart a different course — one where industrial policy, clean energy and social equity advance together rather than at one another’s expense.
