Microsoft will open four additional data centers in China by early 2022, a report says.
According to Bloomberg News, the company is building the centers as part of a wider push to increase its services across Asia. It hopes to "capitalize" on a recent rise in demand for the internet.
Microsoft has five data centers in China now managed by 21Vianet. In March, the company announced the opening of a new Azure region in Hebei. Bloomberg didn't specify where the four new sites were and Microsoft declined to comment.
It announced plans in March to develop its data center network with a stronger presence in the northern region around Beijing. The Washington state-based technology company has six data centers in the country now - all managed by local partner 21Vianet.
Following the acquisition of a facility in Shanghai last year, the company revealed in March that it had bought a data center in Beijing with around 2,000 racks that would be leased by an undisclosed public cloud client. CEO Samuel Shen stated that he intends to develop further through acquisitions in "Tier-1 markets."
The expansion is driven by China businesses sluggish to digitize in the past but increasingly shifting to the cloud. New regulations - notably a comprehensive set of data security edicts that go into effect in September - are also driving domestic and international companies to migrate to local data management and increase information technology spending.
According to a government white paper quoted by Microsoft, the China cloud market is expected to reach $46 billion by 2023.
Amazon recently confirmed its own expansion in China. The company announced phase two of its Ningxia region, which is run by Ningxia Western Cloud Data Technology, with an estimated increase in floorspace of "1.3 times" that of phase one. The company announced its Beijing region, which is managed by Sinnet, would receive a third Availability Zone later in 2021.
