March 25, 2024 - Tencent is planning to expand its cloud business in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and will reportedly make "huge new investments" in data storage.
The company's plans were revealed in a report by Bloomberg.
Its investments are still in a "nascent stage" but according to senior executive vice president Dowson Tong, will pick up quickly over the next few months.
"We are going to announce more throughout the year. We see a lot of potential in this market so will be increasing our investment," said Tong.
The company plans to first focus on offering cloud storage to entertainment and gaming companies in the region. This will be followed by computing power for artificial intelligence applications.
Last year, Alibaba and Saudi Telecom Company partnered to launch Alibaba Cloud with $238 million in investment in cloud computing infrastructure. Earlier this month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) confirmed its plans to launch a cloud region in Saudi Arabia in 2026 along with a $5.3 billion investment plan in the long term. Google launched a Saudi cloud region in November 2023.
