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 would 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 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, it 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. 

RELATED COVERAGE

Japan looking at banning Huawei and ZTE from government deals

Land of the Rising Sun could be the next nation to exclude Chinese telco vendors.

US government warns allies about Huawei again

The US has told Hungary that America finds it 'more difficult' to partner with nations that have Huawei equipment deployed.

Huawei to invest $500M to boost cloud capabilities, services

Chinese tech giant says it plans to pump in US$500 million over five years to build up its cloud professional services and infrastructure, focusing on industry clouds and skills certification.

Huawei ups cloud ante, US market remains elusive

Chinese tech giant is ramping up efforts in public cloud, venturing into some markets on its own instead of with its telco partners, but remains coy about its US footprint, which has remained small.

Huawei bullish on cloud goal, but cautious in following through

Chinese hardware vendor pushes back target of hitting US$10 billion revenue from its enterprise business to 2018 and says it currently has no plans to extend its public cloud service beyond China.