The cornerstone laying ceremony for the Cloud Valley big data project, with investment valued at 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion), is held in Haimen Economic Development Zone on Oct 22. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

The cornerstone laying ceremony for the Cloud Valley big data project, with investment valued at 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion), was held in Haimen Economic Development Zone on Oct 22, marking another infrastructure project landing in the zone after the Alibaba Jiangsu cloud computing project.

As a key project invested in by Beijing ITCS Information Technology Service Co Ltd in the Yangtze River Delta region, the cloud valley covers about 9.3 hectares and will be equipped with 16,000 cabinets.

To be built as a national demonstration center for the application of health big data, the project will build an information gathering area that will take cloud computing research and green data as its main body, and will focus on the five functions of cloud computing training, cloud service hosting, data computing, storage and incubation.

After coming into operation, cloud valley will achieve annual sales of 2 billion yuan, and profits and taxes of over 120 million yuan, to further promote the development of the big data industry in Nantong.