Wanda’s tech unit eyes leadership role in China’s public cloud market within five years

Wanda Internet Technology said it will officially launch its public cloud service in China in the first quarter of next year after it inked a partnership deal with IBM in March.

Despite being a latecomer to the sector, Chinese property-to-entertainment conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has plans to become one of the country’s biggest public cloud providers in five years by leveraging IBM’s knowhow in cloud computing and an investment estimated at “billions of renminbi”, a company official said.

“We aim to become one of the major players in pubic cloud business in China because there will be no room left for small participants in five years,” said Sean Yang, the vice-president and chief technology officer at Wanda Internet Technology, a unit of Wanda Group.

Yang is positioning Wanda as a high-end public cloud provider, serving only big enterprises that prefer value over price.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post on Wednesday, Yang laid out the roadmap for the future development of the company’s cloud business, which only kicked off in March after a partnership deal was inked between Wanda Internet Technology and IBM, one of the leading public cloud providers in the world.

Through a newly formed venture called Wanda Cloud Company, the two parties will offer selected IBM cloud infrastructure and platforms in China, according to IBM’s statement in March.