Hong Kong data centres booming on back of mainland internet giants
Unfazed by Google’s abandoned project in 2013, the city’s data centre market is thriving as more mainland companies pursue international expansion
When news broke in December 2013 that Google had pulled the plug on its Hong Kong data centre project, there was plenty of hand-wringing and finger-pointing that followed as people tried to make sense of what had happened.
The American internet giant’s decision came about two years after it broke ground on a 2.7-hectare site inside the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate, where it had committed to invest US$300 million in the facility that was to start operations later that year.
The company’s official line for abandoning the project was that it needed “to focus on locations where we can build for economies of scale”, adding that Hong Kong lacked the land for expansion. So it pushed ahead with the construction of data centres in Singapore and Taiwan instead.
Four years later, the Hong Kong data centre market has moved on and now sees its growth inextricably linked to the ambitious development plans of large, nimble and deep-pocketed mainland Chinese companies.
