Google Opens Second Japan Cloud Region

Google has launched a second cloud region in Japan with three zones, offering a range of core products including Cloud Spanner, Big Query, and Google Kubernetes Engine. Located in Osaka, the latest region is the company's seventh in the Asia-Pacific and 20th worldwide. The new region is also part of Google $47 billion investment over the past three years to build up its cloud infrastructure. 

The Japan cloud region currently supports a clientele that includes Asahi Group, Yamaha, Sharp, and Mercari, said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in a post announcing the launch. He said the adoption of Google's technology among companies in the retail, games, financial services, and manufacturing sectors has grown since it opened its first Japan cloud region in Tokyo in 2016. 

With the addition of the second Google Cloud Platform, Kurian said its customers in the country will be able to enjoy lower latency and higher system availability. They will also have access to the vendor's recently launched multi-cloud application management platform, Anthos, he added.

NTT Communications, Softbank, NEC, and Digital Advertising Consortium are all part of Google's partner community in Japan. 

According to Kurian, Google is looking to add new Asian cloud regions in Seoul and Jakarta in the first half of next year. 

The US tech giant is not the only cloud player ramping up its cloud footprint in the Asia-Pacific, with competitors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Huawei having also made moves to expand their coverage across the region. 

AWS last month unveiled plans to open a cloud region in Jakarta by early-2022, which would encompass the creation of three availability zones as well as the cloud vendor's ninth such facility in the Asia-Pacific region. AWS has already opened facilities in Singapore, Beijing, Sydney, and Mumbai. The Indonesian site would push AWS's global network of regions up to 25, with another new region slated to open soon in Hong Kong. 

Huawei in February opened a cloud region in Singapore with plans to develop the site into "one of its largest" outside of its domestic Chinese market. The vendor said the Singaporean facility is suited up with artificial intelligence capabilities aimed at helping startups and key vertical industries in the Asia-Pacific, where it currently operates cloud regions in Hong Kong and Thailand, amongst other countries. Worldwide, Huawei has 40 availability zones across 23 regions. 

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