IBM and a division of Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group said Sunday that they are forming a new company to bring more IBM Cloud services to China.
Resulting cloud computing services from the new entity, called Wanda Cloud Company, will go live in 2018, an IBM spokeswoman said.
Basically, the new company is licensing IBM (IBM) technologies that IBM will implement in Wanda-owned data centers. Wanda will sell the services to business customers and ensure that the services comply with Chinese regulations. IBM will share in the revenue, the spokeswoman said, but there were no details on that or the size of the deal which was signed by IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty and Wanda Group chairman Wang Jianlin.
The Wanda Group parent company is a huge, far-reaching entity which last year spun out Wanda Internet Technology Group.
Get Data Sheet, Coins2Day ’s daily tech newsletter.
This is not IBM’s first Chinese cloud foray. Two years ago, IBM said it was working with Chinese tech company 21Vianet to bring cloud services to China, a potentially huge market.
U.S.-based cloud giants wishing to work in China must work with local companies. Microsoft (MSFT) for example, worked with 21Vianet to bring Azure cloud to China starting in 2014. And public cloud market leader Amazon (AMZN)Web Services, worked with several local partners including China Net Center and SINNET Technology to build its China region based in Beijing.
But it’s not all about American cloud powers. Chinese retail megalith Alibaba @alibaba(BABA)also offers cloud computing services under the Aliyun brand both in that country and, increasingly elsewhere in including i n the U.S.
For more on IBM, watch:
IBM’s news comes as the company kicks off its Interconnect tech conference in Las Vegas this week.
