From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 72

are also spreading internationally. Outside the United States, Scandinavia
has become a major data-center venue and the cloud is no stranger to the
Middle East, but China has made the most signiicant progress in the
overall development of cloud computing (Horn 2011; Glover 2013). By
the end of 2012 China represented about 3 percent of the global cloud
marketplace, but it is expected to grow at a 40 percent annual rate, reach-
ing $18.6 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2013. Led by China,
the Asia region is expected to lead the world in cloud trafic and work-
loads by 2016 (Ong 2012). China's burgeoning cloud industry beneits
from minimal competition with the major U.S. providers. Amazon is not
there and Microsoft has just begun to introduce its Azure cloud service
in China. This has left lots of room for the development of indigenous
cloud services, including the Alibaba Group, which provides both cloud
infrastructure and services to a variety of national and multinational
clients over its Aliyun network. In addition, Baidu, known in the West
as the “Google of China” for its prowess in search services, has invested
heavily in cloud storage and processing, evidenced in a 2012 investment
of $1.6 billion in a new data center and a deal to offer free personal cloud
storage on Android phones. Baidu's major competitive challenge comes
from Tencent, an instant-messaging and online-gaming company with
400 million users, making it one of the largest consumer-application cloud
companies in the world, with a valuation in 2012 of $60 billion. In 2013
Tencent took a major leap in the cloud marketplace when it announced
that it would be the irst to build a center in the western China city of
Chongqing, where planners expect signiicant new growth in the cloud
( People's Daily Online 2013). In 2012, the world's leader in telecommuni-
cations equipment production, Huawei, also moved into cloud computing
and storage, a decision that led to a signiicant growth in company proit
(Reuters 2013a). China's cloud development is helped by the presence of
Asian irms like Pacnet that beneit from having developed network and
data-center services in the Asian region, including Hong Kong, Singapore,
and Australia (Powell 2013).
In 2013, Baidu demonstrated that it does far more than provide service
to China when it signed a deal with France Telecom to offer its mobile
browser throughout Africa and the Middle East on the French company's
smartphones (Thomas 2013). In addition to these network-driven cloud
providers, companies have emerged that provide storage services. A leader