Huawei has big plans for new Singapore cloud region
Huawei has opened a cloud region in Singapore with plans to develop the site into "one of its largest" outside its domestic Chinese market. The facility will offer the vendor's full cloud stack and support local customers as well as China-based businesses looking to expand into Asia-Pacific.
The Singapore cloud region also will be suited up with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities aimed at helping startups and key vertical industries in Asia-Pacific, the tech giant said in a statement on Wednesday. Huawei currently operates cloud regions in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America, including Hong Kong, Thailand, Russia, South Africa, and three Chinese cities Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing. Worldwide, it has 40 availability zones across 23 regions.
Huawei said it was looking to develop the Singapore site into one of its largest regions outside China, but did not offer any financial details or other specifics regarding such plans.
It said the city-state was a major services and shipping hub in Asia and a key member of ASEAN and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Singapore also was a strategic location for Chinese businesses looking to expand overseas as well as for foreign organisations entering the Asia-Pacific region, Huawei added.
Through its Singapore cloud region, Huawei would offer a "stable, secure, and scalable" platform for local and Chinese companies, said its Asia-Pacific president Roben Wang. "These cloud services, which offer low latency and high cost-efficiency, will leverage the high-performance chips, servers, storage, and network equipment that Huawei has developed, as well as the high-speed networks we have constructed with carriers in Asia-Pacific."
The cloud facility complied with Singapore's data security certification requirements, Huawei said. Its South Pacific president Jeffery Liu added that the site would support digital transformation efforts in Asia-Pacific.
He also revealed that Huawei Cloud would introduce a training and recruitment initiative for the region.
The Chinese vendor in 2017 said it would invest US$500 million over five years to build up its cloud capabilities and infrastructure, including plans to develop cloud-focused professional services and certification programme.
It recently has had to deal with allegations of security impropriety and espionage, with governments including the US, Japan, and the UK banning or mulling over plans to ban the use of Huawei equipment. On its part, Huawei has denied such allegations and asked for evidence that its products are a security risk.
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