Cloud to drive Asia's next wave of economic growth: Microsoft

Asia, which accounts for 60% of the world’s growth, is leading the global recovery with the rapid digitalization of business models. In response, Microsoft has expanded its cloud datacenter footprint in the region with the addition of cloud regions in Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and New Zealand.

In addition to being a critical foundation for business resilience, cloud will be a key driver of Asia's next wave of economic growth as the region moves out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

"There is no doubt that during the past year we have seen the acceleration of digital transformation efforts across all industries. Cloud will continue to be a core foundation empowering the realization of Asia's ambitions, enabling co-innovation across industries, government and community, to drive inclusive societal progress," said Ahmed Mazhari, President, Microsoft Asia.

Asia, which accounts for 60% of the world’s growth, is leading the global recovery with the rapid digitalization of business models. In response, Microsoft has expanded its cloud datacenter footprint in the region with the addition of cloud regions in Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and New Zealand.

Microsoft's most recent datacenter expansions in these markets are set to generate more than USD21 billion in revenues whilst creating 100k new jobs in the next four years, according to IDC.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced plans to establish its first datacenter region in Malaysia to deliver trusted cloud services locally. The company's investment is expected to generate up to USD 4.6 billion in new revenues over the next four years and create more than 19,000 new direct and indirect jobs in the country.

Back in October 2020, the tech giant unveiled plans to establish its first cloud datacenter region in Taiwan. By 2025, Microsoft its ecosystem and cloud customers together are expected to generate more than USD10 billion in new revenue and add over 30,000 jobs to the Taiwanese economy.

In addition to expanding its datacenter regions to new markets, by the end of 2021, Microsoft will deliver Azure Availability Zones (AZs) to every country in which it operates a data centre region. Also, every new datacenter region that the company launches going forward will include Azure Availability Zones.