Toshiba is preparing a multi-billion-peso expansion of its hard drive manufacturing in Laguna over the next three years, a plan the Philippine government says could create around 3,000 jobs. The announcement, made October 7, ties one of the country's longest-running electronics exporters directly to the global boom in artificial intelligence (AI) and data-center storage.
What was announced
Philippine officials said the expansion will focus on nearline hard disk drives (NL-HDDs) — high-capacity drives used in data centers, where demand is climbing on the back of cloud computing and AI workloads. Investment czar Secretary Frederick Go met Toshiba executives led by chief operating officer Koji Ikeya, and said the government would facilitate the planned investment, crediting tax reforms under the CREATE MORE law for attracting long-term commitments. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) is also involved in the discussions.
The exact investment amount has not been disclosed, and the 3,000-job figure is a government projection rather than a number Toshiba itself has published.
Thirty years of hard drives in Laguna
The expansion builds on a very established base. Toshiba Information Equipment (Philippines), Inc., or TIP, was set up at Laguna Technopark in 1995 and started production in 1996, making 2.5-inch drives for personal computers. It now runs two plants in Laguna, including one at Carmelray Industrial Park in Calamba, and its lineup spans hard drives, enterprise solid-state drives, and helium-filled models.
Earlier this month, Toshiba announced the first shipment from a newly expanded nearline HDD production line at the Laguna Technopark site, which until then had focused mainly on PC drives. The company says TIP aims to nearly double its annual production by fiscal year 2027, measured in storage capacity, compared with fiscal 2025. "The first shipment from our expanded nearline HDD production line marks an important milestone for TIP," said company president Kenichi Myokan.
The AI storage boom behind the move
Industry reporting puts bigger numbers on the plan. TrendForce, citing Nikkei, reports that Toshiba will invest roughly ¥60 billion (about US$380 million, or around ₱23.9 billion) to expand its Philippine facilities and double its production capacity for AI data-center hard drives within fiscal 2027 — its first major HDD investment in about five years. The same report says Toshiba will start handling new drives that raise per-unit storage capacity by as much as 40%, with 65TB-class drives targeted for mass production around 2030.
Those figures come from Nikkei's reporting, not from Toshiba's own Philippine announcement, so treat them as reported rather than officially confirmed here. The report also carries a caveat that matters for the hiring picture: Toshiba plans to automate more of its inspection and cleanroom work, which could trim the additional workforce needed for the expansion by around 40%.
The demand side is clear enough. Nearline drives are in persistent shortage because solid-state storage still costs roughly 20 times more per unit of capacity, and rival suppliers have reportedly committed most of their capacity through 2027 and beyond.
What it means for Philippine tech jobs
Electronics remain the Philippines' biggest export, and the AI build-out is pulling more of that supply chain into the country — Samsung recently moved DDR5 memory module testing and assembly to Clark, while local firms are deploying over 10,000 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs for domestic AI capacity. Toshiba's plan would add thousands of manufacturing and engineering roles in Laguna on top of TIP's existing workforce — with the caveat that automation may mean the final hiring number lands below the headline projection.
