Microsoft’s next Azure data center regions will be in South Korea

Microsoft today is sharing its latest plans for expanding the Azure public cloud. Next stop: Korea.

There will be not one but two new regions with data centers coming online in South Korea, including one in Seoul, a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email.

“Businesses in Korea and throughout Asia Pacific will be able use the massive computing power available locally to fuel growth, spur innovation and accelerate digital transformation,” Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of marketing for Microsoft’s Cloud & Enterprise business, wrote in a blog post.

Plus, Microsoft’s two previously announced Azure regions in Canada — Canada Central in Toronto and Canada East in Quebec City — are now generally available, Numoto wrote.

Microsoft Azure competes with public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS), as well as Google Cloud Platform. Google recently announced its intention to set up a dozen new cloud regions around the world, and IBM has also pursued a geographical expansion strategy for its cloud in the past. These clouds also compete on features and prices.

In March, Microsoft said it would be establishing two regions exclusively for the U.S. Department of Defense.

AWS is also setting up a data center region in Canada. And AWS started off the year by announcing that its Seoul region was live.