Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Google's cuddling up to China with clouds in its eyes – reports

Drive and Docs may end up in Tencent-owned DCs

Google is pondering a cloudy move to China and a hookup with local operators Tencent and Inspur, according to reports.

China, long coveted by the Western technology industry for its massive, tech-hungry markets, is a ripe target for the usual big firms on two fronts: as a market to sell into and as a contract producer of goods. It's the first of these which interests Mountain View.

Worryingly, the Asian powerhouse's increasing use of technology as a mechanism for political repression is of little apparent concern to Western businesses lured by the promise of fresh-to-the-brand buyers.

Although Chinese law requires its citizens' data to be stored within its borders, as Data Centre Dynamics reported, foreign cloud companies can operate in China – provided they partner with a local firm that owns the physical data centres.

Google reportedly declined to comment on a recent Bloomberg report that it was in talks with Tencent and Inspur Group in the early part of this year. The financial news wire said that China's efforts were aimed at getting its Drive and Docs products into the Chinese market.

Back in 2010, Google pulled its search engine services from China shortly after threatening to do so when government-backed hackers targeted the Gmail accounts of pro-democracy campaigners. Evidently the lure of lucre is proving too strong for whatever passed for Google's morals eight years ago.

A Google Cloud move into China would put it head-to-head with local players such as Alibaba, as well as Amazon and Microsoft; the latter two already have local partnering deals to comply with Chinese law on data centre ownership. Nonetheless, the benefits of a tie-up with one of the Western world's biggest tech players can only be to the smaller firm's advantage, especially if its objections on principle to Chinese law can be damped down with enough commercial favours and negotiations. ®

 

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like