A Guide to Huawei Cloud in China
Huawei Cloud (华为云) has rapidly established itself as China’s second leading cloud service provider, holding a 19% market share as of January 2025, ranking behind Alicloud. Huawei Cloud offers robust solutions tailored for businesses operating within the Chinese market. With the increasing complexity of regulatory compliance, cross-border data transfer restrictions, and the unique challenges posed by The Great Firewall, understanding how to effectively deploy and manage services on Huawei Cloud is essential for international companies.
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about Huawei Cloud in China, from licensing requirements and compliance considerations to technical specifications and best practices for performance optimisation.
Key Points
- Huawei Cloud is China’s second-largest cloud provider, offering infrastructure, platform, and software services with strengths in AI, big data, IoT, security, and enterprise cloud migration for businesses operating in the Chinese market.
- Huawei Cloud China and Huawei Cloud International operate as separate environments with different accounts, infrastructure, billing systems, and compliance requirements, meaning companies must create a dedicated China account to deploy services within Mainland China.
- Deploying on Huawei Cloud in China requires compliance with local regulations, including ICP Filing, data localisation requirements, and cybersecurity obligations, often requiring a Chinese legal entity or local partner.
- Huawei Cloud operates an extensive network of data centres across China and provides services such as ECS, OBS, CDN, Cloud Connect, and private networking solutions to optimise performance and reliability for Chinese users.
- Foreign companies can benefit from local partners to handle account setup, compliance, hosting, technical support, and ongoing cloud operations, helping overcome regulatory complexity and language barriers.
Introduction to Huawei Cloud in China
Huawei Cloud is a division of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., one of China’s largest and most influential technology companies. Since its launch, Huawei Cloud has gained a strong foothold in China’s cloud market, competing alongside Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Huawei Cloud’s offerings include a full range of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. It is widely recognised for its capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and enterprise cloud migration. Huawei Cloud operates numerous data centres across mainland China and continues to expand internationally.
Huawei’s cloud services are particularly favoured in industries such as telecommunications, finance, manufacturing, and government sectors, thanks to their focus on security, performance, and regulatory compliance.
Huawei Cloud China vs Huawei Cloud International
Huawei Cloud runs two separate websites: the Chinese Mainland site (huaweicloud.com) for customers in Mainland China, and the International site (huaweicloud.com/intl) for global organisations and overseas branches of Chinese companies. A HUAWEI ID is tied to one site based on its registration country, and accounts, resources and balances don’t transfer between them.
| Huawei Cloud China (huaweicloud.com) | Huawei Cloud International (huaweicloud.com/intl) | |
|---|---|---|
| Contracting entity | Huawei Cloud Computing Technologies Co., Ltd. (Guizhou) | Regional Huawei Cloud entity |
| Intended for | Customers in Mainland China | Global customers and overseas branches of Chinese firms |
| Real-name verification | Required before purchasing any resource | Required only for Mainland resources or commercial discounts |
| Transaction model | Prepayment (top up before purchase) | Post-payment (bind a card or credit line, pay after use) |
| Currency | CNY | Currency selected in account preferences |
| Payment methods | Bank transfer, Alipay, WeChat Pay, UnionPay | Online payment, monthly settlement |
| Billing options | Pay-per-use, yearly/monthly | Pay-per-use, yearly/monthly, reserved instances |
| Console language | Simplified Chinese (English partial) | English plus 8 languages |
| ICP Filing | Supported | Not supported; filing requires a Mainland account |
As with AWS China and Azure China, treat China as a separate deployment. Unlike those two, there’s no third-party operator: Huawei runs its own Mainland cloud directly, so contracts, billing and support all sit with Huawei Cloud’s Chinese entity.
Huawei Cloud Licensing and Compliance Requirements
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Open a Huawei Cloud China account even if you don’t have a Chinese entity with our help!Operating cloud services in mainland China involves strict regulatory requirements. Huawei Cloud has taken the necessary steps to align with Chinese government policies, ensuring that services offered within China comply with all applicable regulations, including:
- ICP Filing (ICP备案): Companies hosting websites or applications accessible in China must obtain an ICP Filing or ICP License through a locally registered entity such as AppInChina.
- Cloud Service Licensing: Under Chinese law, cloud service providers must possess an Internet Data Center (IDC) license or work through licensed partners.
- Data Residency Requirements: Certain categories of data must remain within China’s borders in compliance with the Cybersecurity Law and Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL).
Huawei Cloud offers comprehensive support for businesses needing guidance through these complex compliance processes, including ICP Filing assistance, security compliance tools, and dedicated support for cross-border data strategies.
Huawei Cloud China Regions
Huawei Cloud operates more Mainland regions than AWS China and Azure China combined, with its largest capacity in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Regions are named by city, and some cities host multiple regions.
| Region | Region ID | Location | AZs | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN North-Beijing1 | cn-north-1 | Beijing | 2 | Older region, narrower catalogue |
| CN North-Beijing4 | cn-north-4 | Beijing | 3+ | Primary North China region; widest catalogue |
| CN North-Ulanqab1 | cn-north-9 | Inner Mongolia | 3 | Low-cost compute, AI training |
| CN East-Shanghai1 | cn-east-3 | Shanghai | 3 | Primary East China region |
| CN East-Shanghai2 | cn-east-2 | Shanghai | 4 | Older region |
| CN East-Qingdao | — | Shandong | 3 | Newer capacity |
| CN East2 (Wuhu) | — | Anhui | 3 | Newer capacity |
| CN South-Guangzhou | cn-south-1 | Guangdong | 4+ | Primary South China region |
| CN South-Shenzhen | cn-south-2 | Guangdong | 1 | Limited |
| CN Southwest-Guiyang1 | cn-southwest-2 | Guizhou (HQ) | 3 | Huawei Cloud’s headquarters region |
| CN Northwest-Karamay | — | Xinjiang | 1 | Limited |
Beijing4, Shanghai1 and Guangzhou carry the most services and are the default choice for new workloads. CN-Hong Kong is an International-site region, outside the Great Firewall and not subject to ICP Filing; it’s available from International accounts but doesn’t serve Mainland users with Mainland-level performance. Use our Test Your Site in China tool to compare.
This robust infrastructure ensures low-latency access for users across the country, enhanced redundancy, and strong disaster recovery capabilities. Huawei also operates a specialised backbone network for accelerated communication between its data centres, improving the reliability and performance of enterprise applications.
How Do I Open a Huawei Cloud China Account?
A Mainland account requires a HUAWEI ID registered to Mainland China and enterprise real-name authentication (企业实名认证), which in turn requires a Chinese business licence.
- Register a HUAWEI ID on huaweicloud.com with a Mainland China mobile number. The registration country determines which site the ID belongs to, and it can’t be switched later.
- Set the account type to Enterprise. An unverified individual account can be upgraded to enterprise, but not the reverse.
- Complete enterprise real-name authentication. Submit your business licence (with Unified Social Credit Code) and verify either via a small transfer from your corporate bank account or via the legal representative’s identity. Review takes one to three working days, and the account activates around 40 minutes after approval.
- Top up your balance. The China site uses a prepayment model, so you must add funds by bank transfer, Alipay, WeChat Pay or UnionPay before purchasing.
- Deploy and file. Purchase resources (an ECS instance and EIP, for example), then submit your ICP Filing through the Huawei Cloud filing console for any public-facing service. International-site accounts cannot file.
If you don’t have a Chinese entity: real-name authentication, ICP Filing and the prepaid CNY billing all assume a Mainland company. Foreign companies without a WFOE or joint venture can deploy through a partner such as AppInChina, who opens and holds the account under their own entity, completes verification and filings, and invoices you outside China.
What is the Pricing?
You can access the pricing index through Huawei Cloud’s official website.
Performance Optimisation on Huawei Cloud in China
Operating within China’s internet environment poses unique challenges due to The Great Firewall’s effects on latency and packet loss. To optimise performance on Huawei Cloud:
- Deploy CDN Acceleration: Huawei’s CDN services significantly improve website and app performance for Chinese users.
- Use Huawei’s Private Backbone Network for critical services requiring minimal latency.
- Multi-Region Deployment: Distribute applications across multiple data centers to ensure high availability and faster disaster recovery.
- Cross-Border Network Solutions: For multinational operations, Huawei offers Cloud Connect, enabling high-quality, compliant international communications.
Challenges of Using Huawei Cloud in China
While Huawei Cloud provides excellent service within China, foreign businesses may face challenges such as:
- Regulatory Complexity: Navigating ICP Filing, cross-border data restrictions, and cyber compliance requirements can be daunting without local expertise.
- Language Barriers: While Huawei provides some English-language support, most detailed technical documents and customer support resources are primarily in Chinese.
- Limited Cross-Border Support: International cloud strategies still require careful design to bridge Chinese and non-Chinese systems efficiently.
FAQs
Is Huawei Cloud available outside China?
Yes. Huawei Cloud International operates regions in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and elsewhere, and a separate Europe site (huaweicloud.com/eu) with EU-based infrastructure. These are entirely separate from the Mainland platform.
Does Huawei Cloud offer AI models?
Yes. Huawei’s Pangu (盘古) model family and the ModelArts platform run on Huawei’s own Ascend chips, and third-party models including DeepSeek and Qwen are available through ModelArts. Huawei is one of the few providers in China with large-scale AI compute that doesn’t depend on export-restricted Nvidia hardware. See our China LLM Index for how Pangu compares.
Do I Need an ICP Filing to Use Huawei Cloud China?
Only for public-facing websites and apps. Internal workloads don’t require one, but ICP Filing must be done from a Mainland account; International-site accounts can’t file.
Can I Connect Huawei Cloud China to my Infrastructure Outside China?
Yes, through licensed cross-border services. Huawei’s Cloud Connect links Mainland regions with Hong Kong, Singapore and other International regions over Huawei’s backbone, and Direct Connect supports private lines. These are compliant, licensed connections and don’t circumvent the Great Firewall; cross-border data transfers must still meet China’s data export rules.
How AppInChina Can Help
AppInChina specialises in helping international businesses successfully launch and operate cloud-based applications and services within China. We can support you by:
- Providing you with an account under our Chinese entity
- Ensuring you are compliant with local regulations such as the ICP Filing.
- Providing ongoing technical support.
Contact us today to streamline your Huawei Cloud deployment and unlock your business potential in China.