Alibaba Cloud initially entered the South Korean market with the launch of its first information heart in March 2022
In sum – what to know:
Second information heart in South Korea – Alibaba Cloud confirms its second facility within the Asian nation will open by end-June 2025, enhancing capability for AI and cloud providers.
Assembly AI and digital demand – The brand new facility addresses rising native demand from companies adopting AI, cloud computing and digital platforms.
World funding – The corporate not too long ago confirmed its funding of round $52.7 billion construct out its cloud infrastructure at a world scale.
Chinese language firm Alibaba Cloud has confirmed it is going to open a second information heart in South Korea by the tip of this month, additional increasing its regional footprint to satisfy rising demand for cloud computing and synthetic intelligence (AI) providers.
Alibaba Cloud initially entered the South Korean market with the launch of its first information heart in March 2022, after asserting the mission in late 2021, in keeping with native press stories.
“In keeping with the speedy development of AI-based applied sciences and growing digital demand throughout industries, Alibaba Cloud has been repeatedly increasing its infrastructure in South Korea,” stated Yoon Yong-joon, nation supervisor for South Korea at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “By the launch of this second information heart, Alibaba Cloud will present clients with extra resilient and adaptable cloud environments, in the end fostering AI innovation throughout varied sectors and increasing the digital ecosystem.”
A few of the purchasers of Alibaba Cloud in South Korea embrace AI firm Univa and live-streaming platform Lala Station, which has been utilizing Alibaba Cloud providers since 2022.
Lee Cheol-ho, chairman of Lala Station, stated: “With Alibaba Cloud’s help, we have now been in a position to scale our operations and improve engagement with our viewers throughout numerous markets.”
The brand new information heart facility is anticipated to supply improved capability and localized help for South Korean companies, particularly these working with high-performance computing and AI purposes.
Final month, Alibaba Cloud confirmed it was shifting forward with its bold world enlargement technique, reaffirming plans to speculate CNY380 billion ($52.7 billion) in constructing out its cloud infrastructure at a world scale.
Talking at a company gathering, Alibaba Cloud’s CEO Eddie Wu emphasised the corporate’s purpose of growing a “unified world cloud community”, enabling Chinese language enterprises to entry constant AI infrastructure each domestically and internationally.
As beforehand reported by the South China Morning Put up, the Chinese language agency intends to speed up development in strategic markets together with Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, the Center East, Europe and the Americas. The corporate presently operates 87 availability zones throughout 29 areas, with latest additions together with a brand new area in Mexico and a second information heart in Thailand.
These plans, first unveiled in February, have taken on renewed urgency following the escalation of tensions between the U.S. and China round entry to AI {hardware}. The U.S. has restricted the export of superior chips to China, prompting chipmakers like Nvidia to launch downgraded merchandise such because the H20 GPUs, that are tailor-made for the Chinese language market.
Nonetheless, in April 2025, the U.S. imposed even stricter limitations, banning the export of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China. Nvidia has stated the transfer will price the corporate round $5.5 billion in inventory-related expenses and trigger it to forgo roughly $15 billion in potential income, in keeping with earlier stories.
Alibaba’s newest earnings report confirmed sturdy monetary efficiency, with Alibaba Cloud reporting a 13% year-on-year income enhance, reaching CNY31.7 billion for the December quarter. The unit has recorded triple-digit AI-related product income development for six consecutive quarters, making it the fastest-growing section throughout the firm over the previous three years, in keeping with the report.
