Tencent to Build Third Data Center in Japan
Chinese internet giant Tencent is set to build its third data center in Japan, Nikkei reported on Wednesday. Tencent made the expansion decision as a result of strong growth in demand for online gaming and online livestreaming from Japanese users.
Poshu Yeung, the senior vice president of Tencent Cloud International, said that Tencent‘s Japanese business grew at a triple-digit annual rate, driven mainly by gaming cloud services. Yeung added, “We will build a third data center in Japan, and it won’t take us too long because of our experience.”
Tencent entered the Japanese cloud market in 2019, but it did not disclose the revenue and capital expenditure generated by Japanese data centers.
On Thursday, Tencent will roll out a service in Japan that is designed to support metaverse creation, with dozens of templates. In January, Tencent began to offer support for cloud avatar creation and online livestreaming, and the change on Thursday will be an upgrade to existing services. Yeung said, “We will ease the burden on users by providing a range of templates.”
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Since its move into overseas markets in 2016, Tencent Cloud Services has now entered more than 10 countries and regions. Yeung said, “We already operate 30 data centers outside of China, with the most recent new ones located in Brazil and Indonesia.”
There are similarities between the South Korean and Japanese markets, with a bias toward entertainment products, such as gaming. Yeung said that Tencent will use its experience in gaming to help Japanese and Korean companies expand into Brazil and Southeast Asia. In Europe, where orders for cloud services are also increasing, Tencent‘s task will be to connect local companies with their branches in China.
