Global Data Solutions, HP (HPQ) and Microsoft (MSFT) will jointly invest more than RMB800 million to build a high availability data center in Chengdu, which will be the largest of its kind in China.

He Zheng, vice president of GDS, has told local media that the new center would be put into operation on a limited basis as early as in October 2007 and in the initial period it will be used in some transit areas provided by the government. He said that the construction of the formal service center will begin at that time and be completed in 18 months.

The High Availability Data Center will include a disaster preparation center, data processing for enterprises and personal information arrangement services. It is designed to serve banking, securities, insurance and government institutions.

According to He, the new center will focus on providing disaster recovery services and will be connected with GDS' disaster recovery centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to form a large network. He said that though they have not really started the construction of the Chengdu center, they have already been contacted by many enterprises from Europe and Japan who want to use the services of this center.

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