Microsoft has announced a new Azure data center region in Northern China.
Quietly announced during its Ignite conference this week, the China North 3 region will be located in Hebei and be the company’s fifth in the country. Microsoft also has a region in Taiwan, which the Chinese Government considers part of China.
Microsoft has since confirmed the new region will go live in 2022. The company says the new region will enable more customers to utilize Microsoft Cloud, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power BI. The company says the expansion is expected to "effectively double" the capacity of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud portfolio in the country.
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As with the previous China regions, the Azure in China is a separate service sold and operated by 21Vianet, and in an independent, dedicated network within China and designed to serve businesses operating within the country.
“Microsoft Cloud operated by 21Vianet was the first international public cloud compliantly launched in China through a local operating partner. Our intelligent, trustworthy, and neutral cloud platform has been empowering hundreds of thousands of developers, partners, and customers from both China and the world to achieve more with technical innovation and business transformation," said Alain Crozier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Greater China Region (GCR). "The upcoming region will reinforce the capabilities to help further nurture local talents, stimulate local innovation, grow local technology ecosystems, and empower businesses in a wide range of industries to achieve more."
Microsoft’s first two Chinese regions, China East in Shanghai and China North in Bejing, launched in 2014. Additional facilities in the same cities, China East 2 and China North 2, opened in 2018.
The company last week announced Dr. HOU Yang as the Chairman & CEO of the Greater China Region. He will succeed Crozier to lead its sales, marketing, and operations organization in the region.
Microsoft recently announced plans to launch a new Azure region in Indonesia.
