(JW Insights) May 4 -- Western China’s Guizhou Province, the country’s major big data hub, completed more than RMB8.07 billion (about $1.17 billion) of investment in the first quarter this year, reported Xinhua, citing local authorities on May 3.

Among the total investment, approximately RMB1.5 billion($217 million) was for channelling more computing resources from China’s eastern regions to its less developed yet resource-rich western regions, said the provincial big data development administration bureau.

As of the end of March, 10 large and eight ultra-large data centers had settled in Guizhou. Notably, the total server carrying capacity in the 18 data centers had exceeded 2.25 million units, said Xinhua.

In terms of information infrastructure, by the end of March, Guizhou had added 2,362 5G base stations, raising its total number of 5G base stations to 87,000 and increasing its accumulated optical cable length to over 1.9 million km.

This year, Guizhou plans to complete project investment amounting to RMB20 billion($2.9 billion) in its big data sector and introduce more than 200 digital economy projects with strong growth potential, said the bureau, according to the report from Xinhua.

(Gao J)