CITIC Telecom’s Hong Kong data centre begins new expansion phase

The construction of the Phase III (B) data center at CITIC Telecom Tower (CTT) officially started this week.

A 'groundbreaking' ceremony was held to celebrate the announcement, with CITIC Telecom Internation CEO Dr Tiger Lin officiating proceedings.

This new construction phase comes after the completion of the Phase III (A) data center in September last year. CITIC Telecom asserts the expansion is a direct response to the insatiable demand in the market.

The tech giant acquired the whole building in 2016 - since named the CITIC Telecom Tower (CTT) - and intends to transform the building into a high-grade data center. According to CITIC Telecom, the available racks at the CTT data center are close to being sold out, with almost 500 new racks due to be made available at the completion of construction of the Phase III (B) data center.

Dr Lin asserts data centers are essential infrastructure for next-generation communications technology like cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and IoT, and as such are at the core of the Group's internet transformation.

"CITIC Telecom has gradually developed its self-owned property CTT into a data center building in accordance with the strategy of "unified planning and step-by-step development," says Dr Lin.

"This project takes into account our long-term planning and short-term business development needs, while closely catering to the market demand and laying a solid foundation for the scale development of the Group's high-grade data center business.

After the completion of the entire CTT data center reconstruction project, it will provide the market with around 4,000 racks and will become one of the largest data centers in Hong Kong

With its data centers and cloud computing platforms in Ap Lei Chau in Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China and other places of the world, CITIC Telecom has managed to form comprehensive data center coverage in the region to meet the rising demand in the market. However, Dr Lin says by no means will they be looking to slow their expansion.