Coal-rich region looks to 'clouds' for growth

By that date, according to the government's plan, the region's cloud-computing industry is expected to have an annual income of 50 billion yuan and pay 15 billion yuan in taxes.

Chen Manli, a member of the region's political advisory body, said that Inner Mongolia planned to invest more than 77 billion yuan to support the development of the cloud-computing industry.

"Until now, 11 main projects have been launched and the investment has reached 55.27 billion yuan," Chen said.

She added that the industry is currently at a crucial stage of its growth, and it deserves much stronger backing.

The cloud-computing industry is expected to greatly increase and stabilize the service industry's output value, in the energy, modern manufacturing, smart city construction and public services management sectors, according to Chen.

"It will be more helpful for small-scale businesses that lack the capacity for independent research and investment in IT," she added.

"The launch of the new centers in Inner Mongolia will improve the regional development of high-tech information industries and optimize the economic structure of the autonomous region," said Hohhot top official Nashun.

"One of the key factors to facilitate the new technology-based development model is to attract and retain talent, and advanced industry can also help to improve the local employment situation," he said.

China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), released in March 2011, introduced a clear-cut policy to support the nation's IT and other emerging industries.

The Ministry of Science and Technology later said that China will build self-developed cloud-computing technology be the end of 2015.

More than 20 provinces and autonomous regions had released cloud-computing industry development plans by 2011.

The next three to five years will see tremendous demand in China for cloud computing, thanks to the nation's huge market of more than 550 million netizens and millions of IT companies, said a report from Chinese IT industry think tank CCWResearch.

It said that Chinese companies had invested around 18.8 billion yuan in new cloud-computing facilities in 2012, an increase of 48.1 percent year-on-year, while investment in cloud-related services reached 94.7 billion yuan.

The industry is likely to provide around 5 million job opportunities and more than 2.2 trillion yuan in production value across different industries over the next four years, said the report.