Alibaba Cloud is making ready to open its second knowledge centre in South Korea by the tip of June 2025, as demand for AI infrastructure grows within the area. The transfer provides to the corporate’s efforts to develop internationally and hold tempo with the rise in curiosity in generative AI instruments and providers.
“Our continued funding in native infrastructure is tied to the rising use of AI applied sciences in several industries,” mentioned Yoon Yong-joon, Alibaba Cloud’s nation supervisor for South Korea. “The brand new knowledge centre will assist clients run extra versatile and dependable techniques constructed for AI.”
Knowledge centres play a central function in cloud computing by giving customers entry to storage, software program, and {hardware} over the web. In South Korea, demand for this infrastructure is rising quick. Analysts estimate the nation’s knowledge centre market was value between US$5 billion and US$9.6 billion in 2024, with projections nearing US$10 billion by 2030. Seoul stays the important thing hub, supported by community density, main enterprise customers, and public-sector backing.
Development in edge computing can also be anticipated to speed up, with the native market projected to extend from US$178 million in 2024 to greater than US$2.2 billion in worth by the tip of the last decade. Nationwide programmes targeted on AI, good cities, and digital providers have added additional momentum.
Alibaba Cloud entered the Korean market in 2016 and launched its first knowledge centre in Seoul in 2022. The corporate now operates 87 availability zones in 29 areas. Its facility in Seoul was constructed to fulfill native necessities round knowledge dealing with, and reduce latency for patrons. By organising infrastructure on the bottom, Alibaba Cloud has been capable of provide options to bigger US suppliers like AWS and Microsoft Azure. Its providers are utilized in sectors together with e-commerce, logistics, gaming, and AI.
In South Korea, corporations like Univa and the Naver-backed app Snow have used Alibaba Cloud’s AI fashions to develop their providers. Snow presents real-time options like video filters and AR instruments, that are more and more well-liked in Asia. Univa applies cloud-based AI to enhance its enterprise choices, serving to velocity up mannequin coaching and inference.
Alibaba’s broader funding in AI has additionally been ramping up. In response to the South China Morning Publish, the corporate has put aside greater than US$50 billion for the following three years to strengthen its AI infrastructure – roughly matching half the early funding within the US-based Stargate AI initiative. Its open-source Qwen fashions have gained traction amongst builders, and the cloud unit stays a key a part of the group’s long-term technique.
In Q1 of this 12 months, Alibaba Cloud’s income rose 18 per cent to 30.13 billion yuan (about US$4.15 billion), marking its quickest progress in three years.
(Photograph by Lightsaber Assortment)
See additionally: AWS commits US$13b to Australia knowledge centres
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