From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 73

in this area is MeePo, a storage service similar to Dropbox. The company
has experienced remarkable growth, with capacity in 2012 reliably esti-
mated at 50 terabytes (Chou 2012).
One of the most ambitious cloud projects in the world is China's com-
mitment to build cloud cities. The goal is to construct giant data centers
connected to irms that provide value-added services, as well as research
and development for domestic and international markets. Some of these
involve working with major international partners who provide capital
and expertise, even as local companies control the project. For example,
China-based Range Technology is teaming up with IBM to construct a
6.6-million-square-foot cloud-computing center in Langfang, near Beijing.
It will provide cloud services to government and private-sector organiza-
tions, as well as host cloud systems and mobile devices (Bundy and Haley
2012). In addition to linking up computer-service providers like Baidu and
computer companies like Lenovo, cloud centers also welcome the involve-
ment of China's large telecommunications companies. For example, in
2011 China Telecom formed a partnership with the global cloud-services
company SAP to offer cloud services to small and medium-size businesses
in China. In 2012 the country's three giant telecommunications irms,
China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, agreed to invest $47
billion to develop data centers, including one of the world's largest, to
help create an economic hub in Chengdu, a city in China's southwestern
province of Sichuan. Chengdu already builds one-ifth of the world's
computers and the plan is to expand the Tianfu Software Park around
the cloud data centers. In this way Chengdu will move up the value lad-
der from computer manufacturing to data storage, processing, and trans-
mission, on the way to becoming a center for research and development
(Evans-Pritchard 2012). With ifty-one universities graduating 200,000
scientists and engineers each year, Chengdu has the foundation to take
these steps to higher-value production.
China certainly appears to be poised to become a world leader in cloud
computing. It is building enormous cloud data centers, including some of
the world's largest, at a feverish pace. Not satisied with the construction
of cloud facilities, it is creating entire cloud cities. Of equal signiicance,
China is carrying out a detailed cloud-computing strategy that is most
signiicant for integrating all the major participants, including hardware
manufacturers who are becoming leaders in server production for the