New Azure region coming to China in 2022

In order to meet the China market’s growing needs for global public cloud services, Microsoft is planning to bring a new Azure Region to North China in 2022 through its local operating partner, 21Vianet. This expansion is expected to effectively double the capacity of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud portfolio in China in the coming years, which includes Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform operated by 21Vianet, to power innovation and digital transformation for developers, partners, and customers in China and around the world.

According to the white paper China Cloud Industry Development¹, the cloud market in China is expected to reach 300 Billion RMB (est. $46 Billion) in 2023. In response to the pandemic, 63 percent of organizations in China are leveraging cloud-related innovations to accelerate digitization in their products, payments, e-commerce, automation, and more.

“This unveils a big opportunity. Microsoft Cloud operated by 21Vianet was the first international public cloud compliantly launched in China through a local operating partner. Our intelligent, trustworthy, and neutral cloud platform has been empowering hundreds of thousands of developers, partners, and customers from both China and the world to achieve more with technical innovation and business transformation. The upcoming region will reinforce the capabilities to help further nurture local talents, stimulate local innovation, grow local technology ecosystems, and empower businesses in a wide range of industries to achieve more.” —Alain Crozier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Greater China Region (GCR)

The Microsoft Cloud platform delivers intelligent, scalable, secure, compliant, and trustworthy cloud services, which includes Microsoft Azure, an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI, and IoT services; Microsoft Office 365, the world’s productivity cloud that delivers best-of-breed productivity apps integrated through cloud services, delivered as part of an open platform for business processes; Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, the next generation of intelligent business applications that enable organizations to grow, evolve, and transform to meet the needs of customers.

In China, Microsoft has been collaborating with 21Vianet to run all these essential cloud services since 2014. Announced in 2012, and officially launched in March 2014 with two initial regions, Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet was the first international public cloud service to become generally available in the China market. Following Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform operated by 21Vianet successively launched in China in 2014, 2019, and 2020.

With over 90 compliance certifications globally, Microsoft’s cloud platform meets a broad range of industry and regulatory standards in China, Europe, the US, and in many other global markets. In accordance with Chinese regulatory requirements, Azure regions operated by 21Vianet in China are physically separated instances from Microsoft’s global cloud but are built on the same cloud technical base as its global peers. The consistent architecture across China and global markets makes it easy, efficient, and secure for multinational companies to transplant their IT systems and business applications to China or vice versa.