The information technology authority of Beijing municipal government signed a strategic partnership agreement with its counterpart in Hebei province on Thursday to build a cloud computing industrial park in Zhangbei county, where the largest data center in the region is expected to set up and offer services to the capital's high-tech firms.

The industrial park in Hebei province's Zhangjiakou city will offer cloud computing services to high-tech companies in Beijing, especially those in the city's high-tech Zhongguancun Science Park.

The strategic partnership matches the research and development capacity of companies in Beijing and their surging demand for data processing with the desirable climate of Zhangbei county, which is 225 km away from Beijing.

Zhangbei county has an average temperature of 15 C, which is ideal to build data centers. Climate is critical in the site selection of data centers, because it affects to what extent natural cooling technology can be utilized.

The county's abundant power supply is another important consideration because data centers must operate 24 hours a day.

"The most important factor is that Zhangbei county is only two-and-a-half hours drive away from Beijing. With the integration of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei being named as a national strategy, the partnership to develop cloud computing industry can benefit the development of the three regions," said Liu Yongting, vice-director of the Industry and Information Technology Department of Hebei Province.

Liu said that Beijing's strength in research and development and Tianjin's strength in manufacturing can work seamlessly with Hebei's natural advantage to develop a cloud computing industry.

Two companies have agreed to invest in the Zhangbei cloud computing industrial park, which is expected to cover an area of 5 million square meters and attract investment totaling 100 billion yuan ($16.25 billion).

The Zhangbei county government said they will offer preferential policies such as lower taxes and electricity prices to attract companies to invest in the park.

However, it may not be an easy task, according to Evan Zeng, research director with Gartner Inc, a US-based information technology research and advisory firm.

Gartner said China has been going through a construction spree of data centers. A large number of data centers in developed cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, are expected to come into operation in the coming year, which is expected to bring fierce competition.

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