Japan's Softbank Turns to Korea for Cloud Backup

Japanese telecom and media giant Softbank will partner with Korean wireless firm KT Corp. to build data centers in South Korea, the companies said this morning. The $65 million joint venture is designed to offer cloud computing services, with an emphasis on disaster recovery services for Japanese firms.

KT Corp. will own 51 percent of the joint venture, with Softbank owning the rest, the companies said. The joint venture plans to build an internet data center in the South Korean city of Gimhae offering cloud-computing services to Japanese companies, KT said in a statement. The data center is scheduled to be completed by October.

"South Korea's cloud computing services are getting more interest amid growing demand from Japanese companies hoping to operate data servers in places safer from quakes and tsunamis," KT said, according to Channel News Asia.

Power capacity in Japan has been seriously constrained in the wake of the earthquake, Tsunami and nuclear disaster the country endured in March, making it difficult to build new data centers. At the same time, the disaster hasled many Japanese firms to consider data backups outside the country.