In the global public cloud market, Amazon AWS can be seen as a well deserved leader. More than 1300 new services and features released in 2017, together with a 44.1% market share in the global IaaS public cloud market makes it hard for others to compete with AWS. That’s why the AWS re: Invent 2017 recently held in Las Vegas attracted so many important people in the cloud computing industry from all over the world.
As is known to all, the cloud computing market in China has gained impressive development due to the huge population base, the number of enterprises, the volume of the market and the hard work of numerous IT engineers. Therefore the author, as a Chinese technology media, pays special attention to the moves of Amazon AWS in China market.
In September 2017, Amazon AWS signed a memorandum of cooperation with Xi’an Municipal People’s Government, and the main content of the memorandum is that both sides would work together to build a Joint Innovation Center in Chanba Ecological District of Xi’an. As the third co-construction party of the project, Hong Kong Tong Ze Group would cooperate with Chanba Government and AWS in the implementation and landing of the project, as well as providing hardware support and venture capital for the second phase of Cloud Technology Talent Training Base.
Among the many cities in China, what makes Amazon AWS choose Xi’an to build the Joint Innovation Center? What would be the significance and value of the JIC? What kind of role would Xi’an-AWS JIC play in the future strategy of Amazon AWS in China? With a series of questions, the author interviewed Mr.Zhuo Zefan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tong Ze Group at the AWS re: Invent 2017.
Joint Innovation Center with Huge Significance:
Xi’an-Amazon AWS JIC
Speaking of the reason why Amazon AWS chose Xi’an to build the JIC, “After investigating a large number of provinces and regions throughout the country, AWS found that Xi’an is a relatively dense area for educational resources. For example, Shaanxi has 106 colleges and universities of all kinds, and about 30 vocational education colleges, many of which are located in Xi’an. AWS hopes to promote the use of cloud technology and commercialization of enterprises through cloud incubation and acceleration, as well as continuous technological innovation. After a long period of consideration, AWS believes that Xi’an has the following advantages: concentration of university talents and research institutions; relatively low cost; in line with the the country’s proposal to build bases for innovation and entrepreneurship”said Mr.Zhuo Zefan.
Mr.Zhuo Zefan disclosed that Tong Ze Group has an investment company in Xi’an and organizes international entrepreneurship competitions every year to promote the development of local start-ups. The purposes of Xi’an Joint Innovation Center Project are as follows:
Firstly, through the establishment of accelerator to promote the use of cloud computing in local enterprises, help traditional enterprises realize their cloud computing and digital transformations;
Secondly, establish international incubators to connect domestic start-ups with well-known incubators abroad and help them to enter the global market;
Thirdly, set up the Cloud Technology Talent Base with local universities to train cloud computing technology talents and entrepreneurs, and promote the integration of ” industry, education and research”which would obviously help to attract technology enterprises, start-ups and technical experts from all over the world, and advance local industrial innovation and economic upgrading. On the other hand, the establishment of Xi’an-AWS JIC would also help to build Xi’an a modern city with global competitiveness. With the above advantages of Xi’an-AWS JIC, it has received full support from the local government, such as policy support and convenience in science&technology, talents, education, business etc.
In addition, Tong Ze Group also plans to set up a one-billion venture capital fund for cloud service together with investment platform enterprises of local government to support the business development of incubating enterprises in Xi’an-AWS JIC.
The Development of AWS Needs the Training of Talents
Speaking of his own feelings about the project, Mr.Zhuo Zefan said that “My personal feeling is that the attitude of the local government plays a key role in the development of a place. Xi’an has the concentration of sciences and technologies and it has certain advantages in the fields of Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and Deep learning. The scientific research conditions are relatively mature, while the number of investment institutions is not large which makes it easy for us to find universities and enterprises focus on artificial intelligence and mechanical learning to invest. The international entrepreneurship competition held by Xi’an government recently also matches what we do now , and it provides clear guidance to us on many quantitative work.
Amazon AWS mainly invests in engineers, cloud computing technologies, standardized textbooks, intellectual property rights etc. And AWS would provide its cloud services and related technical training, business and technical guidance to enterprises settled in the JIC to help them master technologies and services including cloud computing ,big data, Internet of Things etc. In addition, AWS also helps these enterprises accelerate their innovation, reduce costs, speed up deployment, upgrade business agility etc.
Mr. Zhuo Zefan also emphasized that the Joint Innovation Center would set up Cloud Technology Talent Training Base to meet the needs of enterprises for cloud technology professionals through training. At present, talents in cloud computing industry are in shortage, China needs about 8 million cloud computing technicians. according to rough statistics. AWS has just started promoting the work, hoping to take cloud training as a key direction in the Chinese market and gradually form a more systematic system in cloud training. It is expected that within five years, Cloud Technology Talent Training Base would offer internship opportunities in Xi’an-AWS JIC to more than 500 outstanding students, and provide Amazon AWS technical training for more than 10,000 engineers, university teachers and students.
“What AWS does is a global public cloud with open backstage, it’s a very open concept and reflects excellent enterprise value. AWS ranks first in the world in terms of innovation and R&D investment which would provide great support for R&D in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and currently, the support and guidance of such innovative technology is just what China’s market and enterprises need.
The idea of Joint Innovation Center is to provide enterprises with the best cloud, service and engineer resources to help them learn and master related technologies, so that enterprises could gain development opportunities in their incubating, accelerating and internationalizing stages. In addition, when enterprises grow into the state of internationalization, or they are in the later stage of their incubation or acceleration, they might get greater investment from us”said Mr.Zhuo Zefan.