China Unicom held the groundbreaking ceremony for its new base in northwest China, which aims to promote the development of the cloud computing business of the Chinese telecom carrier.

Located in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China Unicom’s new base will be a large project, integrating a cloud computing center, an IDC data center, an EDC data center, a customer service call center, and a communications hub. The company plans to spend about ten years to complete this project and it will invest about CNY12.3 billion in it, excluding investments in main equipment.

China Unicom’s northwest base has a total construction area of about 598,000 square meters, including 574,000 square meters above-ground and 24,000 square meters underground. The base will adopt unified planning and will be built in phases.

So far, China’s three major telecom operators have all started building cloud computing bases in Hohhot. In May 2012, China Telecom launched its cloud computing information park project, which includes the first phase project to be completed between 2012 and 2013 and the second phase to be completed between 2014 and 2016. China Mobile also has a data center in Hohhot.