Alibaba secures lease for entire Beijing 3 data centre

Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba has signed a pre-commitment for a lease for the entirety of the Beijing 3 data center, GDS Holdings has confirmed. 

The data center is currently under construction and will boast 4,260 square meters of IT space when it opens in the first half of 2018.

This deal follows on from May's announcement that Alibaba will be building a new data center in Malaysia, which adds to their fourteen they currently own worldwide.

One of those data centers is the GDS Beijing 1 facility, which Alibaba part-owns and is adjacent to the new Beijing 3 center. 

GDS and Alibaba have also signed a memorandum of understanding that recognizes GDS as the preferred data center provider to Alibaba in China, and committed GDS to supporting Alibaba's cloud development plans.

William Huang, Chairman and CEO of GDS Holdings, said that the "demand created by China's rapid cloud adoption" has meant that high-performance data centers are needed now more than ever.

"We are proud to be the partner of choice for Alibaba as we continue to grow and develop China’s Cloud market together," said Huang.

"This partnership is a testament to our ability to continuously source the right projects and provide high operating standards for our customers."