Japanese and Korean telecommunications companies Softbank and KT Corp have opened a new data center in South Korea for cloud services and colocation.
According to the Korea Herald, the companies will be testing the data center, on a 5,540 sq m site catering to 7,000kW, until the end of the year with services being offered from net year.
The data center in Gimhae, a city in the south Gyeongsang Province, has a submarine fiber optic connection run by both companies from Busan to Kitakyushu in Japan.
Both companies said they hope they will be able to use the data center to attract overseas clients with its fast connections.
KT and Softbank announced their new joint venture in May this year, placing 37bn won behind the company which KT owns 51% shares in.
Reports had surfaced that some companies were looking beyond Japan following the earthquake there this year for cloud and colocation services.
Since the earthquake, and failure of Japan’s nuclear power plants, CEO and founder of Softbank, Masayoshi Son, who is also Japan’s richest entrepreneur, has been a keen advocate of renewable energy, though it is now yet known how this data center’s power will be provisioned.
He is currently putting forward ideas for an Asia-wide power grid for renewables that will run 36,000km and link Japan with countries including India, China and Russia, according to a report by Infoworld.
