GUIYANG, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The construction of Apple Inc's first China data center has picked up speed in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

The center's major data building and a transformer substation of 110 KV, an auxiliary facility, are under construction in Gui'an New Area. They are expected to begin service in late 2020 and in October this year, respectively.

On completion, the data center, which will cover about 1,000 mu, or 67 hectares, will improve iCloud services on the Chinese mainland.

Jointly built by Apple Inc and Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Company, the Guizhou facility, with a budget of 1 billion U.S. dollars, began construction in March. It will be Apple's third after the data centers in the United States and Denmark.

Guizhou has become the front runner of China's big data industry due to its climate, power supply, and network infrastructure and has attracted a number of heavyweight players, such as Apple, Qualcomm, Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba and Foxconn, to establish their cloud computing and big data centers as well as regional headquarters.