Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) will invest an additional $1 billion to boost further growth at Aliyun, its cloud hosting arm. The significant investment indicates that cloud computing is an important growth area for Alibaba. Part of the new funds will be used to add new cloud hosting data centers in the Middle East, Singapore, Japan and Europe to Aliyun’s global network of data center facilities.
The additional funding will be used to expand Aliyun‘s international presence, extend and support an alliance-based global cloud hosting ecosystem, and for the development of new cloud and big data solutions that would enable customers to increase productivity, lower costs and scale quickly as their businesses grow.
Aliyun currently provides public cloud computing services in five data centers in China and in Hong Kong, and earlier this year launched its first overseas data center in Silicon Valley. Part of this new investment will be used to set up a global network of Aliyun cloud hosting data centers in the Middle East, Singapore, Japan and Europe.
“Aliyun has become a world-class cloud computing service platform that is the market leader in China, bearing the fruits of our investment over the past six years,” said Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group. “As the physical and digital are becoming increasingly integrated, Aliyun will serve as an essential engine in this new economy. This additional $1 billion investment is just the beginning; our hope is for Aliyun to continually empower customers and partners with new capabilities, and help companies upgrade their basic infrastructure.”
