Huawei and Deutsche Telekom work on “Digital Silk Road”

Sep 14, 2015

• Deutsche Telekom at the Huawei Cloud Congress in Shanghai
• Infrastructure service from the public cloud now new for Chinese customers
• One of the first German contributions to the “Digital Silk Road”

Deutsche Telekom is extending its public cloud offering to the Chinese market. At the Huawei Cloud Congress in Shanghai, Deutsche Telekom will be unveiling its associated infrastructure service from mid-September: Huawei provides the hardware for the Deutsche Telekom cloud services while Deutsche Telekom ensures reliable operation in a German data center. At present the first German customers are testing the product. This cloud service should be ready for market at CeBIT 2016.

“Our promising cooperation with Deutsche Telekom started in Germany and was extended to Europe first. Now we are proud and delighted to present this successful cooperation with our partner together also in China,” said Haibo Zhang, President of Huawei Deutsche Telekom Key Account Department.

“Customers will receive both cost-effective resources as well as quality and reliability from German data centers with our product,” says Dr. Ferri Abolhassan, Managing Director of T-Systems and responsible for the IT Division. “We're unveiling this here in Shanghai in order to help Chinese businesses expand their operations into Europe. In a second step we are also planning to do the reverse with European businesses moving into China. Thus we will be one of the first companies in Germany to integrate actively into the ‘Digital Silk Road’.” Both companies have also joined forces to work on research and development for new cloud solutions. Experts forecast 30 percent annual growth of the cloud market in China through 2018.

The “Digital Silk Road” is an initiative of the Chinese cyberspace authority. It aims to enable companies along the Silk Road to participate in digitization and ultimately reinforce trade relations between China and Europe. The “Digital Silk Road” links the existing “New Silk Road” and “Internet Plus” programs. With the “New Silk Road”, China is promoting the expansion of road, rail and sea between East and West, with investment running into billions. An initial rail link from China to Duisburg is already up and running. “Internet Plus” is China's answer to digitizing traditional industries as fast as possible. The cyberspace authority set up the new initiative in July.

The Telekom Cloud – simple, secure and affordable

Expanding its market position with business customers is an important step for Deutsche Telekom in its bid to become the leading telecommunications provider in Europe. Business involving IT and telecommunications services from the cloud continues to grow and so the Group is increasingly further expanding its cloud ecosystem with market-leading technology partners. Deutsche Telekom and Huawei had already announced the expansion of their partnership for private cloud services at CeBIT. In June, both companies announced the extension of their cooperation for public cloud services. Since 2005, Deutsche Telekom and its subsidiary T-Systems have offered secure end-to-end cloud solutions for companies of all sizes – from consulting to implementation, billing and customer service through to maintenance. Deutsche Telekom's growing partner ecosystem includes solutions from SAP, Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, VMWare, Huawei, Oracle, SugarCRM or Informatica.