Bytedance on Monday said it has plans to set up a data center in India as part of the $1 billion investment in the country that it plans to realize over the next three years, Business Standard reported.
Why it matters: Once completed, the data center would make Bytedance one of the first social media companies to store data locally in India, ahead of Facebook and Twitter. The data center could also allay concerns about data privacy in Bytedance’s short video app TikTok.
- India’s IT Ministry previously requested TikTok to confirm that data collected in India is only stored in the US and Singapore, and won’t be shared with any third parties.
“Since the launch of our platforms in India, we have stored the data of our Indian users at industry-leading third party data centres in the US and Singapore…We now believe the time has come to take the next big leap.”
—Bytedance in a statement to Business Standard
Details: Bytedance expects the data center to take six to 18 months to set up. The construction of the center could cost as much as $100 million according to a report from India Today. The company stated that the decision is “a testimony to ByteDance’s recognition of India’s efforts to frame a new data protection legislation.”