Competition for king of the cloud

China's largest chipmaker Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd on Monday announced its ambitious goal to become an international cloud computing giant, saying it will ramp up efforts to offer public cloud services in the future.

The announcement came on the heels of China's tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd revealing a strategic partnership with Microsoft Corp last week, with the aim to become a top 5 world leader in the cloud computing sector.

Wang Hongtao, senior vice-president of Tsinghua Unigroup, said during the ongoing World Internet of Things Exposition in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, that currently the focus is on industrial application, and the public cloud sector will cover more fields in the future.

"We will focus on the public cloud sector and invest in building an open cloud platform, which in the near future will serve the governments, industry, education and other ... fields."

Wang noted that the firm's cloud strategy includes more than just cloud computing and related technologies.

"Big data, its analytics in the cloud, artificial intelligence algorithm and finally, the internet of things…No one can exist without the other. So when I mentioned the cloud strategy, it also includes big data, the internet of things and the AI."

The Beijing-based company reportedly has been gearing up for an expansion in the public cloud sector, as it has arranged an early funding of more than 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion).

The State-owned enterprise of Tsinghua University, is now marching into the cloud market by establishing an information industry ecosystem featuring chip-to-cloud computing.

The company told China Daily it would launch an industrial internet platform in Beijing on Sept 20, a move toward making a strong entry into the cloud strategy.

"It's necessary to invest abundant resources in the cloud sector," said Zhao Mingyuan, vice-president of Tsinghua Uniudc Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup.

"With the evolving cloud technologies, we need to offer clients more solutions according to different application scenarios, and help them to solve practical problems they may encounter in transformation and upgrading."

Research company Gartner forecasts the global public cloud market will reach $246.8 billion this year, with 18 percent growth year-on-year.

Charlie Dai, principal analyst at consultancy Forrester, said the public cloud is a key factor to drive the digital transformation for companies and governments, and now both the domestic and global public cloud markets are entering a phase of rapid growth.

"It will be a fierce competition," Dai added. "Tsinghua Unigroup needs to develop a competitive differentiation strategy and quickly set up the brand image in the target market."