Company: GDHLF
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000935
Chunk: 60

Company: GDS Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 60
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 not an official law or regulation, reflected the evolving attitude of the MIIT towards the legal requirements as to applications for IDC licenses. A national consulting body and certain telephone numbers, the Designated Numbers, are provided in the Q& A to answer any questions arising from the application of IDC licenses. Since then, even though the definition of IDC services under the Q& A is identical to that under the Telecom Catalogue, whether a business model should be deemed to be IDC services is subject to the unified clarifications under the Q& A and replies obtained from such Designated Numbers, rather than different replies which may be obtained from different officials from the MIIT or its local branches. The draft revised Telecom Catalogue did not come into effect until March 2016, when it was further revised to adapt to developments in the telecommunications industry. During such period, we closely followed legislative developments and conducted feasibility studies for restructuring our business. Based on the Q& A and our consultation with both the Designated Numbers and MIIT officials in 2014 and 2015, IDC services which did not utilize public telecommunications networks would also require an IDC license and that IDC services could only be provided by a holder of an IDC license, or a subsidiary of such holder, with the authorization of the holder.

Table of Contents

GDS Beijing obtained a cross-regional IDC license in November 2013, the scope of which now includes Shanghai, Suzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Zhangjiakou, Langfang, Tianjin, Huizhou, Wulanchabu, Wuhan, Nantong and Chongqing. In order to adapt to the new regulatory requirements and address pre-existing customer agreements, we converted GDS Suzhou into a domestic company wholly owned by GDS Beijing by acquiring all of the equity interests in GDS Suzhou from Further Success Limited, or FSL, a limited liability company established in the British Virgin Islands, in order to enable GDS Suzhou to provide IDC services with the authorization of GDS Beijing, and under the auspices of an IDC license held by GDS Beijing. The MIIT approved GDS Beijing’s application to expand its IDC license coverage to include GDS Suzhou and Kunshan Wanyu, so that they were authorized to provide IDC services, and as of the date of this annual report, GDS Suzhou and Kunshan Wanyu have obtained their own IDC licenses respectively. As part of the VIE restructuring, we converted and changed the shareholding