Zurich, Switzerland, December 4, 2014 - ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has delivered 10 kilovolt (kV) medium-voltage switchgear to Baidu, Inc. for its cloud computing center in Shanxi province in China. Baidu is one of China's largest web services companies and provides a Chinese-language search engine for websites, audio files and images. Cloud computing, or "the cloud", relies on the sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale. It requires secure, efficient and reliable power supply as digital devices are extremely intolerant to power supply interruptions or fluctuations, which can result in data losses with serious consequences. Construction of Baidu's cloud computing center in Yangquan, Shanxi started in 2012. It will be operational by the end of this year with a data storage capacity of over 4,000 petabytes. This is equivalent to 20 million times the total data of the entire collection of the National Library of China, which constitutes over 31 million items, making it the largest in Asia and one of the largest in the world. ABB's scope of supply includes UniGear 550 and SafeRing medium-voltage switchgear and a five-year service package with quarterly on-site maintenance and testing that will help secure power supplies to Baidu's cloud computing infrastructure. UniGear 550 air insulated switchgear is specially designed for indoor installations. It offers power reliability and space savings, making it ideal for urban areas, light industries and special applications such as in the marine sector. SafeRing is a ring main unit (RMU) for the secondary distribution network, designed for use in various applications such as compact secondary substations, small industries and renewables. "Medium-volltage switchgear is a critical link in the distribution value chain and is integral to ensuring power availability and reliability, a critical need for datacenters" said Bruno Melles, head of ABB's Medium Voltage products business, a part of the company's Power Products division."ABB offers a proven range of power and automation technologies that enable safe, secure and reliable power supply to high-performance and mission-critical datacenters."

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility, industry, and transport and infrastructure customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in roughly 100 countries and employs about 145,000 people.

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