The Chinese firm also aims to expand current enterprise customer base and expand its portfolio of services.
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, is currently studying the possibility of opening additional data centers outside China next year, Ethan Yu, VP of Alibaba Group and GM of Alibaba Cloud Global, told RCR Wireless News.
“We are evaluating the market opportunities in where we have not yet have a physical data center,” Yu said. “Expanding our global footprint is our key strategy to better serve our client base who have increasing demand overseas while aiming to target new local customers in these regions.”
Alibaba Cloud recently announced plans to launch four new data centers by the end of 2016. The data centers are set to be housed in the Middle East, Europe, Australia and Japan. With the new additions, the Chinese company said it will operate data centers in 14 locations globally.
The executive also said the company’s focus is to expand its current customer base and enhance the firm’s product offerings.
“We will continue to invest to build the cloud ecosystem as announced in July 2015. Alibaba Group will invest an additional $1 billion to fuel further growth at Alibaba Cloud,” Yu said. “We are seeing enterprises of all sizes go global. As China’s largest cloud computing companies, our services enabled customers to manage the IT infrastructure in different regions with one global account. In the meantime, customers are also benefiting from connecting into our global ecosystem.”
Yu also said Alibaba Cloud expects to expand its portfolio of services for overseas customers, mainly in the big data and security segments. The executive noted the company remains committed to building a network of strategic partnerships across regions to offer competitive cloud services to its global customers.
