Taiwanese telco opens East Asia’s most advanced data centre
Fri 29 Jul 2016
Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest telecom company, has opened the doors to its new 13 billion New Taiwan dollar (approx. £309 million) data centre facility, just outside of the capital Taipei.
The operator, hoping to become a regional leader in the field, said that the facility was now the largest in Taiwan and the most advanced centre in East Asia. Chunghwa chairman Rick Tsai, commented at the opening ceremony: ‘We hope to attract global companies to our facilities and help boost Taiwan’s digital economy… We hope this will become an Asia-Pacific data center hub.’
Tsai continued that the new data centre would particularly seek to advance the development of the Taiwan’s domestic FinTech scene, offering improved solutions for the country’s financial services.
Taiwan is a growing data centre market and is under the keen watch of many international tech giants. Google opened its $600 million (approx. £454 million) data centre in the Chunghua region in 2013. The centre uses a night-time cooling and thermal energy system, which Google claims helps it to reduce costs and cut energy use by up to 50%.
Facebook and Apple have also both considered the region as a suitable location for their own facilities. Earlier this month, local paper United Daily News suggested that Apple was proposing a new Taiwanese data centre following a surge in demand for iTunes and Apple TV services.
Taiwan is a popular choice for data centre expansion and its government has made significant efforts to prepare for investment and the construction of new centres. An accommodating regulatory environment has also lowered barriers for startups in the country and has reduced restrictions on foreign labour. Since the beginning of last year, it has not been necessary for foreigners to have two years of related work experience in order to work at an early stage company. Foreigners can also apply for year-long entrepreneurial visas.
