Alibaba Cloud has announced plans to open four new data centers by the end of 2016 in the Middle East, Europe, Australia and Japan.
The new centers are expected to boost its data center network to 14 locations, covering key economic centers around the world. The data center in the Middle East, located in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, commenced initial operations today.
Alibaba Cloud’s expansion aims to provide customers in Asia and worldwide with improved latency and greater access to diverse offerings, including data storage and analytics services, enterprise-level middleware, and cloud security services. The new data centers are expected to support Alibaba Cloud’s growing client base beyond the current 2.3 million.
Extending its global footprint in the Asia-Pacific, Alibaba Cloud will open a new data center in Sydney, Australia by the end of 2016.
Alibaba Cloud will bring its most popular cloud services in data storage and processing services, enterprise-level middleware, and cloud security services to the Australian market. A dedicated team will be based in Australia, and build up a cloud ecosystem with local technology partners to drive cloud and big-data business in the region.
The planned new Japan Data Center, hosted by SB Cloud Corporation, a joint venture between Softbank and Alibaba Group, will meanwhile provide Japanese enterprises with public cloud computing services from Alibaba Cloud.
With the joint venture, Alibaba Cloud will further expand its cloud computing service platform by leveraging SoftBank’s extensive enterprise customer base in Japan.
“Alibaba Cloud has contributed significantly to China’s technology advancement, establishing critical commerce infrastructure to enable cross-border businesses, online marketplaces, payments, logistics, cloud computing and big data to work together seamlessly,” Alibaba Cloud president Simon Hu said.
“We want to establish cloud computing as the digital foundation for the new global economy using the opportunities of cloud computing to empower businesses of all sizes across all markets.”