Alibaba's Data Centers - Hangzhou, Qingdao Beijing, and Hong Kong

WSJ reports on Alibaba’s IPO and its data centers.

The launch of the Hong Kong data center also comes as Alibaba’s two main shopping sites–Taobao and Tmall– have been trying to expand outside mainland China, beginning with Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. According to Alibaba’s website, the company has data centers in three mainland Chinese cities: Hangzhou, Qingdao and Beijing.

...

Alibaba said it built the new data center in Hong Kong in cooperation with a unit of Towngas, a Hong Kong gas company. Alibaba didn’t say how much it spent on the facility.

Health and Wealth risks are Driving Movement of China's Talent Pool

In the past there was a large wave of companies who rushed into China.  Over the last few years though there have been more employees who refuse to stay because of concerns of their health.  Not a significant issue to most, but when the China natives decide to leave due to concerns of their health and now their wealth that is of concern.

CNN reports on Chinese who are choosing to leave because of risks to their wealth and health.

Many are leaving China for reasons like education, food and wealth security and air quality.
Many are leaving China for reasons like education, food and wealth security and air quality.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • China sees 8.5 million mainly middle-class living abroad with less than 10% moving in
  • Paper in China calls exodus "the world's worst brain drain"

Hong Kong (CNN) -- "Culture is not the main reason why most Chinese people leave. This is a romantic view. Most people leave China because of practical reasons like education, food and wealth security and air quality."

 

 

Analyst are even making the observation.

Health is wealth

Meanwhile, unbridled economic growth has brought a string of food and environmental scares in its wake. Smog from pollution has reached levels hazardous to human health and blanketed the capital Beijing and much of northeast China in recent months, prompting Premier Li Keqiang to declare a "war on pollution."

Those who can afford to exit are considering their options very seriously.

"High net earners cite wealth preservation, education for their children, food and environmental security as the main reasons for considering investment immigration,"

said Jennifer Zeng, a private wealth expert from management consulting firm Bain & Company.

AWS coming to China in 2014

AWS has a press release detailing the arrival of AWS to China.

PRESS RELEASE

Dec. 18, 2013, 3:22 a.m. EST

Amazon Web Services Announces Upcoming China Region for its Cloud Computing Platform

AWS signs memorandums of understanding with the Beijing and Ningxia governments to develop cloud computing services

 

 

 

 

 

SEATTLE, Dec 18, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- --Xiaomi, Qihoo 360, TCL, Tiens, NQ Mobile, FunPlus, Kingsoft, Mobotap, and Papaya Mobile among the growing Chinese business community already using AWS

AMZN +1.03% -- Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS, Inc.), an Amazon.com company, today announced the upcoming limited preview of its China Region for the AWS cloud computing platform. This will be the fourth AWS Region in Asia Pacific and the tenth Region globally. In the limited preview, which will be deployed in early 2014, a select group of China-based and multinational companies with customers in China will be invited to begin using AWS Cloud services in the AWS China Region to build their businesses and run their applications in the cloud. Businesses and software developers can apply for access to the limited preview in the AWS China Region today athttp://www.amazonaws.cn .

One nugget in the AWS blog is the business is a bit different in China than other sites.

Our business model will be slightly different here than in the other AWS Regions. You will need to create an AWS account that is specific to the Region. We will be posting additional information on AWS China website as it becomes available.

Here is the news China AWS site.  Below is the site with Google Translate to english.

NewImage

Google Double downs in Taiwan

Google just announced it is expanding in Taiwan.

Google doubles Taiwan data centre investment to $600 million

CHANGHUA, Taiwan Wed Dec 11, 2013 1:03am EST

0 COMMENTS

Dec 11 (Reuters) - Google Inc said on Wednesday it will double its planned investment to $600 million for its data centre in Taiwan to cater to the world's fastest growing technology consumer markets.

"While we've been busy building, the growth in Asia's Internet has been amazing. The number of Internet users in India doubled, from 100 million to 200 million. It took six years to achieve that milestone in the U.S.," Google's vice president of data centres, Joe Kava said in a statement.

The funny thing is I was looking at the Google data center Taiwan website and it said...

In December 2013, we announced the opening of our facility that represents a total long-term investment of USD 600 million.

When.  Oh 24 minutes ago.

A good strategy to go for three data centers in a region, Google folds HK, keeps Singapore and Taiwan

Google announced data centers in HK, Singapore and Taiwan 2 years ago.  Three is a good number when you want to create a high availability service, because sometimes the third has problems.  And in Google’s case they confirmed they will not open up Hong Kong reported in WSJ.

Google Scraps Plan to Build Hong Kong Data Center

Internet giant Google Inc.GOOG +0.60% has scrapped a plan to build its own data center in Hong Kong and will instead expand its facilities in Taiwan and Singapore.

This undated file photo made available by Google shows the campus-network room at a data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
 
Associated Press

“While we see tremendous opportunity and potential in Hong Kong…we will not be moving ahead with this project,” Taj Meadows, Asia-Pacific policy communications manager, told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday

We’ll see if Google chooses another location in Asia Pacific.

Although when you look at a map it looks like Middle East would be a place sometime in the future.

NewImage