Chinese Internet giant Tencent announced in mid-April that it will begin construction on another China data center in June.
The new facility, which will be built in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, will be the first large cloud data center in Midwest China for the company. The site will be one of four complexes Tencent operates in China, with other facilities located in Tianjin, Shanghai and Shenzhen, which are all located on the country's Eastern coast.
The new China data center will be located in the Shuitu Hi-tech Industrial Park in Liangjiang New District. The project will cover approximately 16.5 acres and will be built in two phases. The first phase will start in June and will bring 100,000 servers online when work is complete. Once the second phase has been finished, the facility will be capable of hosting 300,000 servers. The project is expected to cost $1 billion.
Larger Data Center Creation Strategy In Store
The creation of the Chongqing data center has been in the works for some time now, and is the result of a strategic partnership between Tencent and the Chongqing Municipal Government. As part of the agreement, Tencent will set up a new company in Chongqing with an independent accounting system and registered capital of no less than $30 million. The new company will be mainly focused on the construction, operation and maintenance of the cloud facility and its associated research and development center.
Tencent and the municipal government are basing their partnership on a '1+1+4' strategy, which refers to 'one platform, one base, four expansions.' This means Tencent will build a high-tier cloud data center in Chongqing as well as an R&D center, and then expand activities in open platforms, e-commerce, big data and an industry support and incubator fund. The activities in all of those areas are meant to focus on the development of a reliable cloud ecological system at both the downstream and upstream levels. Tencent CEO Huateng Ma said that the partnership between the company and the municipal government will not only help Tencent improve its nationwide data center deployment, but it will also promote the development of the cloud industry in Chongqing.
While Tencent is clearly making a large push to expand its cloud presence within China, it is making strides to grow its data center portfolio internationally as well. The company opened a Hong Kong data center last year and will bring a Toronto data center online in late April.
Brought to you by WiredRE, the nation's leading cloud, colocation, and data center advisory firm.
