China to Become #1 Cloud Market by 2024
China’s enormous population coupled with their appetite for technology will boost China into the #1 cloud marketplace between the years 2019 and 2024, says Laura Luo from CCTV. According to Zhang Yaqin, the Chairman of Microsoft China R&D, he predicts astronomical success in the Chinese cloud. At the China Cloud Computing Conference, Zhang said, “Right now it’s still at an early stage, but this year it will reach around 1 billion US dollars, but will reach 10 billion in five or six years in China.”
US based vendors such as Microsoft and AWS have already begun battling it out against Chinese cloud companies such as Tencent and Alibaba. It is still unclear which companies have an advantage although Microsoft Azure is already one of the largest IaaS providers available in China.
The growth curve for cloud is underway for Chinese internet giant Tencent. According to CCTV, Tencent execs feel as if they can surpass consumer usage by up to 10 times. Given that China holds the distinction of being the country with the most online users in the world, this growth potential is entirely plausible. Chen Lei from Tencent is quoted as saying, “In 2013 12.5 percent of all the services sold in China were sold through cloud providers. We see that this trend will accelerate.” Some analysts such as Zhang believe that cloud could save up to 90% on capital expenditures for Chinese enterprises.
With this kind of growth and savings potential, it’s becoming more difficult for Chinese providers to shy away from cloud. The Eastern hemisphere seems to have the same concerns about the cloud as the Western hemisphere. Chen Lei mentioned that security concerns are the top priority for Tencent’s cloud services. Chen says, “Internet security is an issue related to national security. I think it’s important for Chinese companies to develop our own security technology and protect companies conducting business in China.”
