US services companyCenturyLink has opened a data center in Shanghai,working with local Chinese firms for the space, the IT, and the networking. 

Although CenturyLink has two sites in Singapore, one in Tokyo and one in Hong Kong, this site, in the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, is its first venture onto the Chinese mainland. It is working with seervices company Neusoft, data center operator GDS, and network firm Citic Telecom.

Helping multinationals into China
CenturyLink is looking to work with multinational companies that are expanding into China, according to Gery Messer, CenturyLink managing director, Asia Pacific: “For multinational corporations looking to grow their customer base, entering China presents enormous opportunities and challenges. CenturyLink makes it easy for businesses to host within China’s borders.”

Gartner sees IT spending in China growing, to $375 billion in 2015, according to an April 2014 report which comments:  “The world’s largest Internet and mobile population fosters the fast growth of e-commerce, as well as a vibrant Internet and social communication ecosystem. To deal with the fast-changing business requirements and massive data volume, enterprises have to invest in an agile IT infrastructure.”

CenturyLink has 57 data centers worldwide, and its recent expansion includes a second data center in the Toronto market.