Cloud center lures with low power prices

Low electricity prices have drawn telecommunication companies to the cloud computing center in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, according to an executive of China Telecom Corp's branch in Hohhot, the capital city of the region.

"The cost of electricity in Inner Mongolia accounts for around 30 percent of the total operating cost of the data center," said Yuan Xiaodong, operation manager of China Telecom's cloud computing bases in Inner Mongolia and Guizhou province. "In areas south of the Yangtze River, such cost takes up 45 to 55 percent of the total cost."

Work on the cloud computing base started in 2012. Hohhot has put 70 billion yuan ($11 billion) into the project to build China's biggest cloud computing data center, with about 4 million servers and business reaching Beijing, Shanxi, Gansu, Heilongjiang, Qinghai and other provinces.