Company: GDHLF
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000935
Chunk: 172

Company: GDS Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 172
---
 providers. We compete to a lesser extent with foreign carrier-neutral data center service providers. We believe that we distinguish ourselves b...  

Table of Contents

We also face competition from the state-owned telecommunications carriers, namely China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. One of the main purposes for which these carriers develop data centers is in order to facilitate the sale of related telecommunications network services. In locations outside of the key economic hubs, these three carriers may sometimes be the only available provider of data center services. We distinguish ourselves from these carriers because we are carrier-neutral, enabling our customers to connect within our facilities with all three carriers based on their cost and/or network and application requirements. Although we compete with carriers for colocation customers, our customers also rely on the connectivity that carriers provide. We believe that we also have a mutually beneficial relationship with these carriers since our data center services often help carriers attract more customers for their telecommunications services.

Risk Management and Internal Control

Our risk management and internal control system consists of policies and procedures that we consider to appropriate for our business operations. Our internal control system is built according to the latest version of the COSO Internal Control - Integrated Framework (COSO framework) released by the U. S. COSO Committee. The COSO framework is the most widely recognized model by U. S. regulatory authorities and used broadly by listed companies in the U. S. to measure the effectiveness of an organization’s internal controls. At the same time, we comply with the Enterprise Internal Control Basic Norms and Enterprise Internal Control Evaluation Guidelines issued by China’s Ministry of Finance and Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing rules Appendix C3 - Code on Corporate Governance. We continuously optimize the internal control system to ensure full compliance with all regulatory and compliance requirements, while further improving our corporate governance practices and enhancing transparency. Our risk management provides an important structure for the steady operation of enterprises. Based on the COSO framework, we have established and implemented a three-tiered enterprise risk management system, including control environment, risk assessment and control activities.

Environmental and Operational Sustainability Initiatives

We published our fourth annual ESG report in August 2024, wherein we explain our progress in 2023 toward fulfilling our ESG commitments. For more information, please refer to our 2023 ESG report, which is accessible via hyperlink in our press release, Exhibit 99.1 to our Form 6-K (File No. 001-37925), furnished to the SEC on August 27, 2024.

We plan to publish our 202