Alibaba Group Holding chief executive Eddie Wu Yongming has doubled down on the company’s plan to create a “unified global cloud network”, months after drawing up a 380 billion yuan (US$52.7 billion) investment programme for computing resources and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in China.
Advertisement
The Hangzhou-based tech conglomerate’s cloud computing and AI services unit, Alibaba Cloud, will accelerate the buildout of that international network across Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, Wu said at a corporate event on Thursday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
He said the unified global cloud network is expected to give Chinese companies consistent AI infrastructure services at home and abroad, while ensuring that Alibaba Cloud provides the “best AI technical service capabilities” to various enterprises.
In addition, Wu expects that initiative to boost Alibaba Cloud’s “global competitiveness” and strengthen support for Chinese companies expanding overseas. Mainland media reports cited Wu as saying: “Global expansion is an inevitable path for Chinese enterprises.”
Alibaba Cloud’s existing international infrastructure includes 87 so-called availability zones across 29 regions, which allows the firm to provide 394 cloud computing and AI products as well as 59 technical services, company data showed.
Advertisement
Those resources already make Alibaba Cloud the largest cloud computing services provider in the Asia-Pacific, according to the company.