Chayora Limited, an international infrastructure investor, developer and operator of hyperscale data centre campuses in China, recently announced the launch of their new Chayora Academy in Tianjin, China. The announcement took place during a well-attended lecture at the Tianjin Vocational Institute in China on September 14, 2018. The lecture, introduced by Professor Liu Bin, President of the Tianjin Vocational and delivered by Dean Nelson of Infrastructure Masons, was attended by an audience of over 500 members, including many representatives from the renowned university’s big data and telecommunications faculties.

Oliver Jones, Chief Executive of Chayora, announced this milestone for Chayora after Dean Nelson’s lecture discussing the parallels between Silicon Valley’s development and China’s upcoming explosion of computing power needs driven by the incorporation of advancements like artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, innovations such as driverless vehicles, facial recognition and intelligent robots are key AI developments in process for China as they work towards the goal of leading the world in artificial intelligence by 2025. China has set aside a fund of 30 billion yuan (US $4.5 billion) to accomplish integration of intelligent devices and upgrades in traditional industries. Tianjin alone has already announced investments of 100 billion yuan (US $15 billion) to support the artificial intelligence industry, alongside a separate commitment of 10 billion yuan (US $1.5 billion) to promote intelligent manufacturing. These commitments to widespread and large-scale AI deployment also have Chayora building its first 300MW hyperscale data centre campus with nine individual DC facilities to accommodate international standard DC requirements in the Beichen district of Tianjin.

“China is leading the world with its national commitment to artificial intelligence right across the supply chain,” says Oliver Jones, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Chayora. “With AI being embedded into more devices and IoT only in its infancy, we expect there to be a second explosion in big data processing, echoing the creation of Silicon Valley in the western United States in the 1980s and 1990s.  China and Chayora will be ready for this.  The Chayora Academy will be a focus for the international data centre community to foster the growth of top local talent for direct employment and will enable our customers to secure the same.”

The academy, which plans to have its base at the Tianjin Vocational Institute, will be working towards and facilitating China’s goal of an ultimately world-renowned reputation for technical innovation. The Institute, first established in 1978, began as the Chemical College of Tianjin University and by 1982 had transformed into Tianjin Vocational Institute, currently among 17 universities and colleges in China receiving World Bank funding. The campus covers over 766,000 square meters and has 27 advanced laboratories. With 17,000 students in total and over 2,000 enrolled in its telecommunications and data centre programme, it is one of the leading higher educational institutions in Tianjin, making it the ideal home for Chayora’s academy. Chayora will be ensuring that all operational personnel involved in delivering services at the Chayora Tianjin Campus in Beichen – whether directly employed by Chayora or customers, or employed through outsourced service partners – are fully inducted, trained and regularly retrained to achieve world-class service standards.