Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom unveils $406m data centre

Taiwan's largest telecom operator Chunghwa Telecom unveiled its new 13 billion New Taiwan dollar ($406 million) data centre in suburban Taipei on Friday, clearly demonstrating its intention to become a regional leader.

"This is the largest in Taiwan, and the most advanced data centre in East Asia. We hope to attract global companies to our facilities and help boost Taiwan's digital economy," Rick Tsai, Chunghwa Chairman, said at the opening ceremony of the new facility.

"We hope this will become an Asia-Pacific data centre hub," Tsai said.

Tsai added that he hopes the data centre will help propel the development of Taiwan's financial technology sector, referring to technologies that allow companies to offer better and more efficient financial services.

This strategy is one which is being pursued by many regional data centre hubs lately as they take advantage of the confusion and possible realignment or financial markets after Brexit.

The new data centre, with its capacity to handle massive amounts of data and provide cloud computing services, is an essential piece of infrastructure in the development of next-generation technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics, the Inter of Things and connected devices.