ByteDance To Build India Data Center To Avert TikTok Trouble

ByteDance announced it is setting up a data center in India, where its app TikTok has been under scrutiny for privacy violations and possibly facing a ban, according to NetEase Tech.

“We are happy to announce that we are making an important step to building a data center in India, which proves the company’s appreciation of India’s efforts to draft the PersonalData Protection Bill (PDP Bill),” said ByteDance.

The construction of the data center is planned to start within next 6 to 18 months, with an investment of $100 million. Apart from that, ByteDance said earlier that it will invest $1 billion in India in the next three years.

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“Since our platform is available in India, we have stored Indian users’ data information in third-party data centers in countries such as U.S. and Singapore. And that is what we have always been trying to do, which is to take local users’ benefits to our heart. We are working on how to provide safe and reliable services for our users in India,” said ByteDance.

Other tech giants such as Facebook and Google refused to comply with the data localization terms listed in PDP Bill due to possible privacy issues and higher storage cost.

TikTok, a short video sharing platform, has gathered 120 million monthly active users. The company’s another social app Helo enjoys about 50 million active users in India, according to ByteDance.