● Advantageous geographical location

Hohhot sits to the west of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster and serves as a significant node city in connecting West and East China. It is a channel to Mongolia, Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe on land. Hohhot's location provides the city's cloud computing industry foundation in terms of logistics, investment and information.

Hohhot is an important intersection for the optical cable arteries of China's three telecommunication operators. It is also a pivot of Inner Mongolia's optical cable channel.

● Preferential policies

Hohhot began full construction of a national e-commerce and information pilot area in 2013, when the country was pushing forward informatization infrastructure construction and information consumption. It has achieved good results so far.

As policy and financial support given to the pilot from the state keeps growing, information consumption will keep on improving as a result. This will be a driving force for the cloud computing industry's development.

● Sound industrial foundation

Thanks to the state's policies in promoting the strategic emerging industries and Hohhot's mature industrial basis and investment environment, a total of five giant cloud computing projects, including China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, have been established in Hohhot with a total investment of nearly 70 billion yuan ($11.44 billion). Hohhot will be the largest data center in North China as these projects are completed. To date, a total of 60,000 servers have been installed.

Seven advantages to boost Hohhot's cloud computing The China Mobile (Hohhot) Data Center from a bird-eye's view. At its completion, the China Mobile (Hohhot) Data Center will provide international operation support such as centralized network management and enterprise informatization. It will also promote R&D and innovation in the latest technologies, including cloud computing and the Internet of Things. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

● Definite development goal

Hohhot is on track to be a pivotal cloud computing industry base according to the Cloud Computing Industry Development Plan of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region released in 2013. This industry has been given priority by the municipality. It has drawn out an area of 40 square kilometers for cloud computing growth. It will be a base for cloud computing data centers and big data resources; expand the industrial chain of cloud computing and big data; and focus on demonstration applications in sectors such as e-commerce, industrial services, tourism and education. The construction of a smart city based on cloud computing is also one of the key tasks of Hohhot. Through cloud computing services innovation, it seeks to drive the development of other strategic emerging industries, the modern services industry and high-end manufacturing industries. It will also support the city's economic structure transformation and industrial upgrade.

Edited by Michael Thai