High-end project adds to financial back office industry in HISBP

GDS settles in Huaqiao

On April 30, Huang Wei, president of Global Data Solutions Limited (GDS), declared at HuaQiao International Service Business Park (HISBP) that GDS officially started up its financial back office and data center ecological industrial park project in Huaqiao. This was another high-end financial service outsourcing project that HISBP introduced following Capgemini and Centrin Data Systems.

Established in 2000, GDS was largely invested by Softbank and IFC. As an enterprise-level data center infrastructure and operation service supplier, GDS is a leading enterprise in China’s disaster recovery service outsourcing sector. It is dedicated to promoting the development of China’s IT outsourcing service. It has data center infrastructures meeting international norms in North China, East China and South China areas. It has pioneered in offering disaster recovery outsourcing service to bank, securities and insurance sectors. As a major drafter, GDS participated in establishing the national standard GB/T 20988-2007 Specifications for Information System Disaster Recovery with Information Security Technologies. It assisted industrial administration authorities to set up relevant standards. GDS initiated to establish the Asia-Pacific Data Center Alliance. It is dedicated to market promotion, experience exchanges, resources sharing, and standard establishment in Asia-Pacific region.

GDS has invested to construct the financial back office and data center ecological industrial park at HISBP. The project is oriented to build a large-scale, complete and internationally first-class financial back office and data center industrial park focusing on data center. It will cultivate an ecological chain for service outsourcing industry, realize coordinated and sustaining development, turn into a major undertaker of international data center service outsourcing business, and stimulate all-round economic growth and recycling development of service outsourcing industry in Kunshan region. Meanwhile, it will construct a resources conservation and environment friendly oriented ecological and environment protection industrial park. The financial back office and data center industrial park largely aims to supply outsourcing services of data center, R&D center, call center, and office supporting facilities to large-scale enterprises in the financial, e-commerce, service outsourcing, telecom, and logistics production sectors.

The Huaqiao financial back office and data center industrial park project adopts the mode of overall planning and stage construction. The first-stage project is planned to be a pilot data center, with about 20,000 square meters building area and 800 million yuan investment. It is expected to start construction in August 2009 and put into operation in October 2010. The second stage project is planned to be an ecological industrial park. It is scheduled to start construction in December 2009, completed and put into use in stages, and fully finished in December 2014.

When it is completed, the project will play a strategic role in boosting the financial back office and service outsourcing business in Kunshan. First, it will fully display the resources advantage of HISBP to cultivate the core competitiveness of Kunshan in financial back office and service outsourcing business, and absorb international financial institutions and top-grade service outsourcing businesses to settle in Kunshan. Second, it will speed up the development of financial back office and service outsourcing businesses in Kunshan, help local enterprises swiftly set up high-standard and expansible IT capacities. In the course of guaranteeing reliable and sustaining operation of businesses, it will reduce capital input, shorten construction cycles, reduce business establishment thresholds, and promote development of service outsourcing business in Kunshan. Third, it will concentrate industrial sectors, absorb enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises demanding for data center services to settle in the industrial park, generate a complete industrial chain, and subsequently elevate the overall image of Kunshan as a service outsourcing supplier. Fourth, it will promote constructing HISBP into a state-level ecological model park. The industrial park will apply internationally advanced norms to develop into a zone with low energy consumption, small carbon emission, and prominent ecological effects. It will contribute to building HISBP into a state-level ecological model park.