China Unicom Displays Large-Scale Cloud Computing Project in Northwest

By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor

 China Unicom (News - Alert), a telecom operator in China, make it known its investment of CNY12.3 billion to promote the development of its cloud computing business in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Through this giant project, China Unicom plans to integrate a cloud computing center, an IDC (News - Alert) data center, an EDC data center, a customer service call center, and a communications hub. The project is estimated to be completed in about 10 years.

The CNY12.3 billion investment excludes expenses on main equipment. Additionally, the Northwest base has a total construction area of about 598,000 square meters, including 574,000 square meters above-ground and 24,000 square meters underground, and the project will be completed in phases through unified planning.

China Telecom (News - Alert) is the latest among Chinese telecom majors to build cloud computing bases in the region. Earlier this May, China Telecom launched its cloud computing information park project, which includes the first phase project to be completed between 2012 and 2013, with the second phase planned to be completed between 2014 and 2016. Another major provider, China Mobile (News - Alert), also has a data center in Hohhot.

Meanwhile, a recent report stated that the South China (Dongguan) production base of China Unicom saw a total investment of CNY 1.36 billion. The project, with a total construction period of about four to five years, will be completed in two phases. Upon its completion, the project will serve as China Unicom's largest production base in South China.With a total land area of 61245.02 square meters, China Unicom's South China base will be constructed according to different functional zones, including a machine room zone for communication production, a customer service zone and a value-added service zone, as well as a training and supporting service zone.The project is one of the first three bases that China Unicom plans to construct in its first batch.Earlier last year, Chinese information and communication technology research and consulting firm CCW Research predicted that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the Chinese cloud computing market will be over 50 percent between 2011 and 2015.

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