Apple will establish a data center in China's inland Guizhou Province as part of a $1 billion project involving the local government, as the iPhone U.S. company moves to comply with tighter cybersecurity regulations in order to maintain cloud services in the Chinese market.
China's new cybersecurity law took effect June 1, requiring customer data gathered in the country to be stored there as well.
Apple will provide technical know-how for the data center, which will be run by its Chinese partner, the provincial-government backed Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Development.
The data center will be Apple's first in China and enable it to keep offering the country its iCloud services.
The European Union will also enforce a General Data Protection Regulation starting in May 2018 that clamps down on the international sharing of personal information.