Chinese tech company invests in cloud computing services

Chinese tech company invests in cloud computing services

The world has experienced a paradigm shift in all areas of life – both personally and professionally Work life in particular, has transformed, with many companies making remote work a permanent part of their culture especially after seeing that productivity levels are (in most cases) increasing. As such, businesses have had to respond pragmatically to the changes, by adopting new business strategies and solutions.

One of the ways that facilitates remote working teams is cloud computing which is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power without direct active management by the user.

Thus, many companies have been planning to move and expand their businesses into cloud computing services, ranging from traditional data to enterprise AI.

Reports show that the global public cloud computing market is set to exceed $330 billion in 2020, as providing data from anywhere is the top reason for cloud adoption.

In addition, about a third of companies’ IT budget goes to cloud services, while organizations’ average yearly cloud budget was $2.2 billion in 2018.

One company that is embracing this method is Hong Kong based Tencent Holding, that carved out $70 billion for expanding its business into cloud computing services, extending from traditional data centers to enterprise AI services.

Founded in 1998, the Chinese company is a combination of multiple business entities operating in entirely different industries under one corporate group. Its subsidiaries specialize in various internet-related services and products, entertainment, artificial intelligence and technology, in China and around the world.

“We recently announced our new initiative to invest RMB500 billion ($70 billion) in new digital infrastructure over the next five years. The investment will focus on a number of fields including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, servers, large-scale data centers, supercomputers, Internet of Things, 5G networks, audio and video communications, cyber-security, quantum computing and more,” a Tencent spokesperson said.

However, the Chinese cloud computing market is only a fraction of what it could be, as it is still pushing through its digital transformation program.

Tencent has said it will build a series of large data centers, each of which will contain more than a million servers. With more companies having their eyes opened to the benefits of remote working and cloud computing, this might be a sensible time to push forward with such plans.

China’s domestic players are undoubtedly taking ambitious strides to tap into a market that has tremendous potential – as China is recognized as having the second largest public cloud market but remains much smaller in comparison to the United States. There is clearly plenty of room for growth.