Tencent Cloud has launched an availability zone (AZ) in Frankfurt, Germany.

Revealed during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona, the availability zone is Tencent's third in Germany for its cloud region in the area.

According to Tencent, the new AZ was motivated by growing demand in Europe for cloud and AI services, including new customers such as 3D AI Studio, 3D model marketplaces CGTrader and Maxon, and leading Turkish payment platform, iyzico BV.

The AZ will be available to customers from Q2 of 2026, and will see data hosted locally in Germany in accordance with local and regional regulations.

Fred Sun, general manager, Tencent Cloud Europe, said: "The launch of our new Frankfurt Availability Zone reflects Tencent Cloud's long‑term commitment to Europe and providing businesses with choice as they scale AI and platform-as-a-service solutions.

"Drawing on our experience integrating AI across Weixin/WeChat, one of the world's largest digital ecosystems, we bring real-world insight into operating AI at scale. But every market is different. That's why we build with our customers, not just for them, co-developing solutions to create what's right for their users and ecosystems."

Tencent launched its second availability zone in Frankfurt in June 2021. The company's first data center in Germany was launched in 2017, in Interxion's (now Digital Realty) data center campus in the city. Which colocation provider has been used for the second and third AZs is unknown.

Earlier this year, Tencent announced plans to expand its presence outside of China, looking specifically at the Middle East, but also wider Asia Pacific and Europe.

Currently, most of Tencent's footprint is in Asia, but the company also has regions in North America (Silicon Valley, Virginia, Toronto), Europe (Frankfurt), and South America (São Paulo).