Microsoft opened a joint cloud computing center with Taiwan's economics ministry on Thursday at the Computex electronics show, and announced a plan to work with two local companies on new designs for servers meant specifically for cloud computing, the growing trend towards decentralized, virtualized computing services.

When the project was first announced last November, officials said it would be a first for Microsoft in Asia. Now, it's clear the new center, which Microsoft calls a Software and Services Excellence Center, will be much more than first thought.