Alibaba Cloud is announcing its first data centers in Brazil, France, and the Netherlands, with additional facilities planned
In sum – what to know:
Global expansion – New data centers in Brazil, France, the Netherlands, and additional planned sites extend its infrastructure beyond 90 existing availability zones.
AI Catalyst Program – Offers startups cloud credits and up to 2 billion Model Studio tokens, aiming to foster AI innovation and commercialization.
Physical AI – Integration of Nvidia’s Physical AI stack into PAI provides tools for humanoid robotics and advanced AI development.
Chinese company Alibaba Cloud has outlined new international expansion plans, announcing its first data centers in Brazil, France, and the Netherlands, with further facilities planned in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Dubai over the coming year.
In a release, the company also announced plans to open new regional service centers in Indonesia and Germany to strengthen localized support.
The announcements were made at Alibaba’s Apsara Conference 2025. The firm currently operates 91 availability zones across 29 regions. The new buildout is intended to expand global infrastructure coverage and support growing demand for cloud and AI services, the firm said
Feifei Li, president of international business at Alibaba Cloud, said the infrastructure expansion reflects the accelerating pace of enterprise adoption of AI tools and applications.
In parallel, Alibaba Cloud launched the AI Catalyst Program, designed to support startups and AI-focused companies with expert mentoring, technical tools, and go-to-market resources. The program will provide up to 2 billion free tokens on its Model Studio platform and as much as $120,000 in cloud credits.
Alibaba Cloud also highlighted collaborations across sectors including automotive, sports, and biopharma, where companies are using its AI platforms for research and development. The company’s Platform for AI (PAI) announced an integration with Nvidia’s Physical AI software stack, giving developers a cloud-native platform to accelerate humanoid robotics and other physical AI projects.
The company recently reaffirmed its plan to spend $53 billion on cloud and AI over the next three years, with around $5.4 billion deployed in the past quarter alone.
Alibaba Group has developed a new artificial intelligence chip designed to handle a wider range of inference tasks, according to a previous Wall Street Journal report.
The chip, currently undergoing testing, is being manufactured in China, a shift from an earlier generation of Alibaba’s AI processors that were fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), according to the report.
The development comes amid efforts by Chinese technology firms to reduce reliance on foreign AI chip suppliers.
