Cloud computing is an internet-based computing method that transforms various computing resources within a network into cloud computing services, providing users with on-demand customized services. Due to its significant economic benefits, such as intensive construction, resource sharing, scalable services, and low service costs, cloud computing has become the primary computing model in the digital economy era.
According to Gartner, the global public cloud market, represented by IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, reached a scale of USD 330.7 billion in 2021, with a growth rate of 32.5%. China's cloud computing market has also continued to grow rapidly, becoming a critical cloud computing market globally. In 2021, China's cloud computing market reached CNY 322.9 billion, a year-on-year growth of 54.4%. Among them, the public cloud market was CNY 218.1 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 70.8%, while the private cloud market was CNY 104.8 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 28.7%.
Leading cloud computing companies in China are at the forefront of the industry's development, thanks to their excellent technical capabilities and global strategic layouts. In this article, EqualOcean reviews 12 Chinese leading cloud computing companies, exploring their impressive performance in technological innovation, service systems, and market competition. Let us delve into these enterprises that serve as guiding beacons for the Chinese cloud computing industry, and explore the boundless possibilities of cloud computing technology in the future.
1. Alibaba Cloud (Chinese: 阿里云):
Founded on September 10, 2009, Alibaba Cloud is an investment and creation of the Alibaba Group, with research and development centers and operations in Hangzhou, Beijing, Silicon Valley, and other locations.
As one of China's largest cloud computing service providers, Alibaba Cloud enjoys a stellar reputation both domestically and internationally. Leveraging the robust technological strength and business scenarios of Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud devoted over two years to developing the first domestically owned cloud computing platform with independent intellectual property rights. After years of production testing and the immense business impact during the Double Eleven global shopping festival, Alibaba Cloud has become the first available, reliable, and trustworthy cloud computing platform in China.
Alibaba Cloud's goal is to build the premier platform for internet data sharing based on cloud computing and big data technology, establishing itself as a leading cloud computing service company centered around data. Since 2016, Alibaba Cloud has consistently maintained its position as the top provider in China, Asia-Pacific, and the third globally. Currently, Alibaba Cloud serves over four million customers, including 60% of A-share listed companies. With stability and cutting-edge global product technology, Alibaba Cloud offers services to customers across 29 regions and 88 availability zones. Its Elastic Compute Service (ECS) boasts an availability SLA of up to 99.975%, while data storage design reliability reaches 12 nines, providing customers with an unshakable experience.
2. Tencent Cloud (Chinese: 腾讯云):
Tencent Cloud is a cloud computing brand created by Tencent Group, providing leading cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence technologies and services to government agencies, enterprises, and individual developers worldwide. With outstanding technological capabilities, Tencent Cloud constructs diverse industry solutions and an open and collaborative cloud ecosystem to accelerate the digital transformation of various industries.
Tencent Cloud's infrastructure spans 26 regions across five continents, operating in 70 availability zones. Collaborating with over 8,000 partners, Tencent Cloud has served more than 300,000 enterprise customers, offering over 300 industry solutions in more than 20 sectors, creating a market revenue in the tens of billions.
3. Huawei Cloud (Chinese: 华为云):
Established in 2011, Huawei Cloud is the cloud computing platform under Huawei Company, providing elastic cloud servers, object storage services, cloud databases, networks, data analysis, machine learning, software development clouds, and other cloud computing services. It has research and operations facilities in Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, the United States, and other locations.
Huawei Cloud offers customers IT infrastructure cloud services in cloud computing, cloud storage, cloud networking, cloud security, cloud databases, cloud management, and deployment applications, making ICT services as accessible as water and electricity. As of May 2021, Huawei Cloud provides over 200 cloud service products, with Huawei Cloud Elastic Cloud Servers (ECS), Huawei Cloud Object Storage (OBS), and Huawei Cloud CDN being the most widely used services. Huawei Cloud has established 45 data centers and over 2,500 CDN nodes in 23 regions and countries worldwide.
4. Baidu Cloud (Chinese: 百度云):
Baidu Cloud is the cloud computing subsidiary of Baidu Corporation, officially opening its operations to the public in 2015. With "Cloud, Intelligence, Integration" as its core, Baidu Cloud is committed to providing enterprises and developers with world-leading artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing services, along with easy-to-use development tools. Relying on advanced technology and abundant solutions, Baidu Cloud empowers various industries and accelerates industrial intelligence.
In March 2021, Canalys released the "China Cloud Services Market Q4 2020" report, ranking Baidu Intelligent Cloud first in terms of market share growth and revenue growth among the top cloud providers in China. On February 17, 2023, at the 2023 AI+ Industrial Internet Summit, Baidu Intelligent Cloud announced that "Wenxin Yiyan (Chinese: 文心一言)" would be available through Baidu Intelligent Cloud, leading the way in content and information-related industries and scenarios.
5. JD Cloud (Chinese: 京东云):
JD Cloud is the leading cloud computing brand under JD Technology Group. With cutting-edge technological capabilities in artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, JD Cloud provides multi-cloud, secure, and reliable basic cloud services, including public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud.
JD Cloud currently operates the world's largest Docker cluster, Kubernetes cluster, and one of the most complex Vitess clusters. Based on JD's cloud-native technology middle platform, validated by JD's all-scenario business operations on the cloud, JD Cloud supports JD.com's e-commerce operations and the full migration of JD Logistics to the cloud. After rigorous testing during peak traffic events such as 618, Double Eleven, and the Spring Festival Gala, JD Cloud achieved the highest availability guarantee of 99.995%, positioning itself among the leaders in the global cloud computing industry, providing reliable services.
6. China Telecom Yun (Chinese: 天翼云):
China Telecom Cloud is a technology-based, platform-based, service-oriented company under China Telecom, offering customers public cloud, private cloud, dedicated cloud, hybrid cloud, and edge cloud full-stack cloud services with the four advantages of "cloud-network integration, security and trustworthiness, green and low-carbon, and ecological openness." It caters to the digital transformation needs of government agencies, large, medium, and small enterprises. As a global leading cloud service provider, China Telecom Cloud adheres to the mission of state-owned enterprises, dedicating itself to becoming the main force in the digital economy, contributing to the great cause of building a technology-strong nation, and providing users with secure and inclusive cloud services.
7. UCloud (Chinese: 优刻得科技股份有限公司):
UCloud is a neutral and secure cloud computing service platform that strictly adheres to neutrality and does not involve itself in customers' business domains. The company independently develops a series of cloud computing products, including IaaS, PaaS, big data circulation platforms, and AI service platforms. They have a deep understanding of the business needs of both the Internet and traditional enterprises in different scenarios, providing comprehensive industry solutions such as public cloud, hybrid cloud, private cloud, and dedicated cloud.
In January 2020, UCloud (stock code: 688158) officially debuted on the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market), becoming China's first public cloud company listed on the STAR Market and also the first company on China's A-share market to adopt a "dual-class" share structure, setting a precedent for China's A-share capital market and corporate governance.
8. Kingsoft Cloud (Chinese: 金山云):
Founded in 2012, Kingsoft Cloud was listed on the NASDAQ in May 2020 (stock code: KC) and operates in multiple countries and regions worldwide.
Leveraging more than 30 years of enterprise-level service experience from Kingsoft Group, Kingsoft Cloud focuses on technology and gradually constructs a complete cloud computing infrastructure and operating system. It integrates advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things, blockchain, edge computing, big data, and AR/VR into various industries, providing over 150 industry solutions for video, gaming, digital health, finance, public services, communities, parks, education, industry, e-commerce, and more, while serving numerous leading customers.
9. China Mobile Cloud (移动云):
China Mobile Cloud is a cloud service brand established by China Mobile based on cloud computing technology. It provides customers with professional and high-quality cloud services that integrate cloud and network, feature personalized services, offer customized solutions, and ensure security and controllability. Over the past three years, China Mobile has invested nearly CNY 90 billion, improved the "4+N+31+X" layout of data centers, put into operation 710,000 cloud servers, covered all core hubs of "east-west data and north-south computation," and established over 1,000 edge nodes. The services "Mobile Cloud Disk" and "Cloud Gaming" have amassed over 100 million monthly active users.
China Mobile Cloud offers basic products such as elastic computing, storage, networking, and security for government and enterprise customers, as well as platform-as-a-service (PaaS) products like databases, message queues, and large-scale computing and analysis. Additionally, it introduces a vast array of high-quality software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications through an open cloud market. For customers in different industries, including government affairs, finance, education, healthcare, and the internet, China Mobile Cloud provides customized solutions, including private cloud and hybrid cloud.
10. Sinnet (Chinese: 光环新网):
Beijing Sinnet Technology Co., Ltd. was established in January 1999 (stock code: 300383) and is a professional data center and cloud computing service provider in China. The company's main businesses include internet data center services (IDC and value-added services), cloud computing services, and internet broadband access services (ISP), among other comprehensive internet services.
With over two decades of cultivation and development, Sinnet has accumulated rich industry experience and data center resources. The company has built high-quality data centers in major regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta, providing customers with high customization, high availability, and high-security data center lifecycle services. Leveraging its resources, Sinnet offers customers an integrated solution that includes Amazon Cloud Technology, creating secure, efficient, convenient, and reliable enterprise-level IDC and cloud services. Additionally, as one of the early providers of ISP services in Beijing, the company possesses abundant telecommunications cooperation resources, enabling it to provide diversified customized broadband access services according to users' personalized needs.
11. Sangfor Technologies (Chinese: 深信服):
Founded in December 2000 and headquartered in Shenzhen, Sangfor Technologies is a supplier focused on providing information security, cloud computing, infrastructure, basic network, and IoT-related products, solutions, and services to enterprise users. In May 2018, Sangfor was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange with the stock code 300454.
Sangfor Technologies is a provider of products and services for enterprise-level network security, cloud computing, IT infrastructure, and the Internet of Things. The company owns two major business brands, Sangfor Technologies and Sangfor Cloud, and its subsidiary, SANGFOR TECH, is committed to carrying out fundamental work in various industries' digital transformation, making every user's digital experience simpler and safer.
12. Teamsun (Chinese: 华胜天成):
Beijing Teamsun Technology Co., Ltd. provides leading cloud computing solutions and industry-based digital services to global customers, aiming to help customers become digital operators. Established in Beijing in 1998 with a registered capital of over 1 billion yuan, Teamsun holds or has shares in more than 20 companies. Teamsun is based in China but serves the global market, with business operations spanning 15 countries and 40 cities. It has 37 delivery centers worldwide and employs over 7,000 people.
With over 20 years of accumulation, Teamsun has developed industry-leading products and services that are "independently controllable, secure and reliable, agile and usable." The company serves over 16,000 customers in more than 10 industries and has transformed big data, cloud computing, and other technologies into mature experiences and measurable values.