Apple will establish its first data center in China to speed up services such as iCloud for local users and abide by laws that require global companies to store information within the country, according to Bloomberg.
The new facility, which will be entirely driven by renewable energy, will be built and run in partnership with Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data. The center is part of Apple’s planned $1 billion investment the southern province of Guizhou.
“The addition of this data center will allow us to improve the speed and reliability of our products and services while also complying with newly passed regulations,” Apple told Bloomberg. “Apple has strong data privacy and security protections in place and no backdoors will be created into any of our systems.”
The tech giant is also setting up its first R&D center in China in Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science Park. The center has a registered capital of approximately US$14.994 million and will hire a total of 500 employees. It will focus “on the development of computer software and hardware products, communication, audio and video devices, as well as advanced technologies for consumer electronics products and the information industry.”
