GDS Holdings Limited (GD), a developer, operator of high-performance data centres in China was represented by William Huang chairman at the signing ceremony in Beijing. Chairman Huisheng Wang, representing the State Development Investment Corporation (SDIC), the largest state-owned investment holding company in China, while China Unicom and China Telecom were represented by its chairman’s Xiaochu Wang and Jie Yang respectively.
"We are honoured to participate in this LoI [letter of intent] with these leading state-owned enterprises. As the only private sector company in the consortium, our participation [is] evidence [of] the expertise and market leadership we've established over our 17-year operating history,” said Huang.
The agreement signed by all parties is a letter of intent representing the shared demand held by the four companies for large-scale data centre infrastructure and services in selected upcoming markets beyond the core markets. A demand driven by the growth of the Chinese digital economy.
In November, figures by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) found that data figures mobile data traffic in China had risen by 148% year-on-year. Traffic grew to an average of 2.25GB per subscriber a month, while total mobile call minutes fell 4.5% year-on-year said C114.net.
A pilot project is to be launched in the Tianjin market but the specific details of such are subject to further legal negotiation.
“This partnership combines GDS strengths in data centre design, construction, operations and customer service with the complimentary capabilities, resources and relationships of the other parties. As we realize synergies together, we look forward to working alongside our distinguished partners to explore potential opportunities within the government and state-owned enterprise segments and to further strengthen our brand and market leading position," added Huang.
In December, China Telecom teamed up with Global Switch to HK$5 billion ($640 million) data centre in Hong Kong. According to Global Switch, the facility is set to become one of Hong Kong’s largest carrier and cloud neutral multi-customer data centres, offering low latency connectivity in a network dense environment.
