Apple to open first data center in China to meet new cyber-security rules

Apple announced on Wednesday plans to open its first

data center in China, in partnership with a local internet services

company to comply with tough new cyber-security laws introduced last

month, Reuters reported.

The center is slated to be

built in the southern province of Guizhou, in collaboration with data

management company Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry. Co. Ltd (GCBD).

A

spokesperson for Apple in Shanghai told Reuters that the center is part

of a planned 1 billion US dollar investment in the province.

The addition of this data center will allow us to

improve the speed and reliability of our products and services while

also complying with newly-passed regulations,” Apple said in a

statement.

“These regulations require cloud services

to be operated by Chinese companies so we’re partnering with GCBD to

offer iCloud,” the statement said, referring to Apple’s online data

storage service.

The move makes Apple the first

foreign firm to announce amendments to its data storage for China

following the introduction of the country’s new cyber-security law on

June 1.

While some overseas businesses have said the

law’s strict data surveillance and storage requirements are vague,

authorities say the law is not designed to put foreign firms at a

disadvantage and was drafted in response to the threat of cyberattacks

and terrorism.

The new laws come as Chinese cloud companies are expanding rapidly into foreign markets.

Alibaba has 17 data centers across China, the US, Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Other foreign firms that oversee cloud services, including Amazon and Microsoft, already have data centers in China.