With China's local governments looking to set up data centers, chip demand for data centers locally is set to surge, according to industry sources.

Meanwhile, as data center installations are set to surge in China, the demand outlook for new applications, such as Big Data, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI), appears promising locally, the sources indicated.

International chip firms and mobile electronics vendors are seeking cooperation with China's local governments to be part of the government-led data center projects. Apple and Qualcomm have both disclosed their participation.

Apple recently signed an agreement with the government of Guizhou Province to invest US$1 billion to build a data center to promote its iCloud service in China. Apple will provide technical know-how for the data center, which will be operated by the provincial government-backed Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Development.

Qualcomm in 2016 reached a deal also with the government of Guizhou Province, and unveiled a joint venture - the Guizhou Huaxintong Semiconductor Technology. The JV, which will be 55% owned by the Guizhou provincial government's investment arm and 45% owned by Qualcomm, will focus on the design, development and sale of advanced server chipset technology in China.

Many chip vendors are also gearing up to break into the supply chain of data centers set up in China, as they anticipate China will play a driver of the server and other related chip market growth in the next several years, according to industry sources. Those include Avago, Intel, AMD, ARM, Marvell and Socionext, and Taiwan-based MediaTek, Aspeed, Nuvoton, Parade and Phison.

By: DocMemory
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