Alibaba Cloud plans to open four new data centers outside China to grow its customer base beyond the Chinese market and core e-commerce business.
The data center in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, began operations yesterday. The other three in Germany, Japan and Australia will open by the end of this year.
The new facilities will boost Alibaba Cloud's data center network to 14 locations globally, with six in domestic cities and eight in overseas locations.
Alibaba has been seeking to establish cloud computing as the digital foundation for the new global economy, using the opportunities offered by cloud computing to empower businesses of all sizes across all markets, said Simon Hu, president of Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group.
In the quarter ended on September 30, revenue from Alibaba Cloud rose 1.3 times from a year earlier to 1.49 billion yuan ($216 million), with paid customers more than double in the three months.
