Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing and artificial intelligence arm of Alibaba Group, is committing more than $50 billion to AI development and infrastructure as it accelerates global expansion.
The company announced Sept. 24 at its Apsara Conference 2025 that it will open new data centers in Brazil, France and the Netherlands. It has also planned additional sites in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Dubai. Alibaba also plans to establish new service centers in Germany and Indonesia to provide round-the-clock multilingual support.
Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both platforms operate in China and primarily serve the Chinese market. Among Alibaba’s other marketplaces is the global B2B marketplace Alibaba.com.
Alibaba Cloud’s investment in AI
The move comes as Alibaba Cloud sharpens its international profile against U.S. rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The company already operates 91 availability zones across 29 regions worldwide.
Financial results highlight the stakes. For the quarter ending June 30, 2025, Alibaba reported revenue of RMB 247.65 billion (US$34.6 billion), up 2% year over year. Cloud revenue surged 26% to RMB 33.40 billion (US$4.7 billion), with AI-related products driving triple-digit growth and now accounting for more than 20% of external cloud sales.
“AI is revolutionizing how enterprises deliver business value and drive growth,” said Feifei Li, president of international business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group. “Our strategic expansion is designed to meet this accelerating demand, equipping customers with full-stack AI and cloud solutions anytime and anywhere.”
Alongside the expansion, Alibaba Cloud launched an AI catalyst program to support startups and global AI firms with expert guidance, access to its generative AI platform Model Studio, and up to $120,000 in cloud credits.
The company also highlighted new partnerships across industries. AstraZeneca China is deploying Alibaba’s Qwen large language model (LLM) to streamline adverse drug event reporting, tripling efficiency. Shiseido is using its AI-powered threat detection platform to bolster cybersecurity in China. In Japan, marketing firm GladCube and AI startup FLUX are building new generative AI tools on Alibaba infrastructure, while Alibaba’s Platform for AI is integrating NVIDIA’s Physical AI software stack to advance humanoid robotics.
The announcements underscore Alibaba Cloud’s ambition to secure a larger share of the fast-growing global cloud market, positioning itself as both an infrastructure provider and an AI innovation hub.
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