China aims to be global cloud player, with help from Pacnet

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 02 March 2011 16:05

IT Industry - Strategy

Pacnet and the Chongqing municipal government in China have singed a MoU for the joint development of an international cloud computing hub in Chongqing.

Pacnet and the Chongqing government say they plan to build leading-edge data centres to facilitate the development of an IT hub to support industry and economic development in the region.

Pacnet will also be the strategic partner for the provisioning of international submarine cable capacity that will be connected through partners to the Chongqing Cloud Computing Special Zone.

The mayor of Chongqing, Huang Qifan, said: "We will leverage Pacnet's global capabilities to attract multinational companies to Chongqing to achieve our goal to become China's major information technology hub."

Mu Huaping, director-general of Chongqing Economic and Informative Committee added: "By leveraging Pacnet's international expertise and global submarine infrastructure, we believe this will accelerate the growth of the cloud computing industry in Chongqing to become the leading international cloud computing hub in China."

Ten square kilometre of land in the Liangjiang New Area have been designated by the government as a Cloud Computing Special Zone, of which three square kilometres are reserved for the build out of data centres to be completed in three phases.

The total investment for the first phase of development is estimated at around RMB 1 billion ($US150m), out of which RMB 200 million ($US30m) will be used for the data centre build out as well as cloud computing-related software and equipment.

Pacnet Business Solutions will be the first foreign equity telecommunications joint venture to operate at the Chongqing Cloud Computing Special Zone and plans to deliver a data centre with at least 1,500 racks to provide cloud computing services.