China Unicom extends strategical deals with BATJ

On Tuesday China Unicom, a major Chinese telecom carrier, extended strategic cooperation agreements with four strategic investors Tencent, JD, Alibaba and Baidu.

In 2017, China Unicom introduced the above four companies as strategic investors, and inked deals with them, as part of its broader push to pioneer State-owned companies' mixed ownership reform.

China Unicom said in a statement that over the past five years, it has expanded the depth and breadth of cooperation with the strategic investors in business, products, channels, devices, capital and other fields, which has achieved win-win results.

As the last round of strategic cooperation agreements with Tencent, JD, Alibaba and Baidu expire, China Unicom inked new deals with the four strategic investors on Tuesday for a new round of comprehensive cooperation.

China Unicom said it will partner with the four companies in areas including digital information infrastructure, high-quality life, industrial upgrading, scientific and technological innovation, smart operations, network security, talent training and other fields.

Liu Liehong, chairman of China Unicom, said next year, the company will step up a push to help build a sound digital infrastructure for Chinese path to modernization.

China Unicom now has 1.17 million 5G base stations, accounting for about 30 percent of the world's total 5G base stations, Liu said at the company's partner conference on Tuesday.

This year, China Unicom's revenue from cloud computing business has increased by more than 140 percent year-on-year, and the annual revenue of cloud computing will exceed 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion), Liu said.

China Unicom is also upping its investment into research and development to seek for breakthroughs in crucial technologies. On the basis of annual R&D investment of more than 13 billion yuan, China Unicom added 1 billion yuan of key core technology research budget and 30 million yuan of special incentives to encourage employees to pursue innovation.