Japan's NTT Data will next month establish a cloud computing joint venture in China, in partnership with local IT company Yucheng Technologies.
NTT Data will own 51% of the new JV, which will provide cloud services to local financial institutions, the Nikkeireported.
The company will initially employ 100 people, with a market capitalization of 60 million yuan ($8.8 million). The JV will aim for sales of 720 million yen ($7.8 million) by FY13.
NTT Data's first Chinese cloud initiative builds on its December domestic launch of cloud computing service portfolio BizCloud. BizCloud combines a range of cloud-based solutions, extending to Saas, Paas and Iaas. It has been built on a platform jointly developed by parent company NTT and sister firm NTT Comm.
And NTT Data in July signed an agreement to use IBM's WebSphere product range as middleware for its Finaluna platform for financial services providers. The platform is expected to ship in 1H10.
The entire NTT group has a demonstrated commitment to cloud computing. Parent company NTT has pledged an investment of $470 million for cloud computing R&D over the next three years.
Telecom subsidiary NTT DoCoMo last month launched its own cloud-based service. The product, named Keitade Dougawo Tsukurou, is a movie creating service for mobile broadband subscribers.
But the group may have trouble selling cloud services in the region outside of tech-heavy Japan – a recent survey by Springboard Research revealed that only 46% of APEJ organizations were familiar with the concept. And less than a quarter have so far deployed cloud computing.
This leaves the nascent market plenty of room to grow, however – Springboard also predicts that the region's cloud market will be worth $2.25 billion by 2014.