Tesla, the electric vehicle maker founded by Elon Musk, is building a Chinese-only data centre in Shanghai. This centre allows Tesla to comply with Chinese cybersecurity law in regard to data collection and storage.
According to a Chinese newspaper, 21st Century Business Herald, the Elon Musk’s company plans to build a new facility by the end of June The Gigafactory is wholly owned by Tesla after China relaxed joint venture rules, but it is not clear if the data center is run with a partner.
The news was confirmed by Grace Tao, Tesla’s China head of communications and government affairs said the newspaper.
According to the SCMP report, Tao’s statement came just days after she told reporters that data collected from Tesla’s electric cars in China is stored in the country. This came after China’s military banned Tesla vehicles from its facilities due to concerns about the cameras installed on the cars.
Tesla previously said it already stores local data in China to comply with the local cybersecurity laws, but this was presumably hosted in a third-party facility.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) this month unveiled draft regulations stipulating that personal information and important data collected and generated during operations within the country must stay within the territory, with a particular reference to smart vehicle makers such as Tesla.
However, Tesla China did not release any specifications or details about the project. Tesla China has not confirmed when the Shanghai Data Centre will be up and running, though the construction will be completed at the end of June 2021.
Foreign businesses in China are required to comply with the regulations if they want to access Chinese consumers. In early 2018, for example, Apple decided to host the iCloud accounts of Chinese users in a new Chinese data centre in Guizhou, said the SCMP report.