Tesla completes Shanghai data centre, innovation hub as carmaker joins elite US$1 trillion valuation club

Tesla has finished building a data centre and research hub in China, quickening its localisation pace in the world’s top EV market and complying with regulatory demands

The carmaker delivered 56,006 units in September, a near fivefold increase from a year ago

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Tesla has completed constructing a data centre and R&D hub close to its Shanghai Gigafactory. Photo VCG via Getty Images

Published: 4:43pm, 26 Oct 2021Updated: 10:48pm, 26 Oct 2021

Tesla, the first carmaker with a market cap of US$1 trillion, has finished constructing a data centre and research hub in China, quickening its localisation pace in the world’s largest electric vehicle market and bringing it into compliance with regulatory demands.

The company will do its utmost to ensure safety of car data under streamlined management, the US carmaker said in a statement on Monday evening. The announcement comes just five months after Tesla established a centre in Shanghai for storing operational data, to adhere to China’s tightened regulations on data related to intelligent vehicles.

The research centre in Shanghai will conduct development work on vehicles, charging equipment and energy storage products and will be eventually expanded to the same scale and scope as its US R&D operations, according to Tesla.

“Tesla has every reason to further invest in China due to the country’s huge untapped market potential,” said David Zhang, a researcher for the automotive industry at the North China University of Technology. “A deepened localisation drive will also benefit the carmaker in chasing faster growth here.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has downplayed concerns and dismissed speculation that its cars could be used for spying in China. Photo: Xinhua

Tesla did not reveal its investment in the two centres at Lingang, near its Gigafactory 3, where it assembles the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. It also did not say if the data centre and R&D hub have started operating.

Tesla faced a backlash from customers and officials in China early this year over data security issues. Beijing has made it a requirement for foreign firms to store user data on its soil since 2017, when its Cybersecurity Law came into effect, but has stepped up implementation of late.

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