China's technology giant Tencent reaches out to individuals and organizations worldwide with its telecommunication services. Photo: cnsphoto

Tencent Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, said on Thursday that it launched four new internet data centers (IDCs) in Bangkok, Frankfurt, Tokyo and China's Hong Kong SAR to address the ever-growing business needs around the world.

The addition of the new IDCs places Tencent Cloud's operation in 27 regions and 66 availability zones worldwide, ushering in the opening of the second availability zones (AZ2) in Bangkok, Frankfurt and Tokyo and the third (AZ3) in Hong Kong, the company said.

The newly-added data center in Tokyo will provide complete computing resources and audio and video capabilities for Tencent's platforms to broadcast content related to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which starts on July 23, the company said.

Poshu Yeung, the senior vice president of Tencent Cloud International, said that "The cloud industry is quickly evolving and growing, making Tencent Cloud look forward to further demonstrating its commitment to provide customers with more diverse cloud products as well as stronger redundancy and backup options. The launch of the new IDCs is a significant development in our strategy to rapidly and efficiently expand our international portfolio."

Yeung said the company plans to have over 30 percent growth in terms of IDCs all over the world by end of this year.

Tencent Cloud has beefed up its global push over recent years amid rising overseas demand and fierce competition domestically. In late 2020, Tencent Cloud opened its second availability zone in South Korea, followed by the first IDC in Indonesia as well as the third availability zone in Singapore in April 2021. The company is set to launch its second Indonesian IDC and its first in Bahrain by the end of the year.

Tencent Cloud accounted for 15 percent of China's cloud market in 2020, trailing Alibaba with 40 percent and Huawei Cloud with 17 percent, according to research firm Canalys. In global public cloud computing race, Amazon Web Services' market share amounted to 31 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, exceeding the combined market share of its two largest competitors, Microsoft and Google.

Cloud computing industry has been experiencing rapid growth worldwide. According to data from Frost & Sullivan, 52 percent of organizations globally are using cloud services as of 2020, with another 34 percent expected to add cloud infrastructure within the next two years. The latest data from Gartner also indicated that worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecasted to grow 23.1 percent in 2021 to $332.3 billion, up from $270 billion in 2020.