Dubai: Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, has launched its new data centre in Dubai on Monday that will be operated by YVOLV, a 50-50 joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and Dubai-based Meraas Holdings.
Right now, it has six data centres in China, one each in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, US West and the US East.
The Chinese e-commerce giant is adding three more data centres — Sydney, Frankfurt and Japan, taking the total to 14 by the end of the year.
“The three new data centres will further expand Alibaba Cloud’s global footprint, allowing us to meet the increasing demand for secure and scalable cloud computing services from businesses and industries worldwide,” Ethan Sicheng Yu, Vice-President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Global, told Gulf News.
He said that customers in the region were using its cloud services from Singapore and Hong Kong facilities but now they can use the Dubai facility.
He said the ease of doing business in Dubai coupled with strong transport and telecommunications infrastructure make this city the perfect choice to house Alibaba Cloud’s high-speed, high-quality and secure cloud services and in turn expand our global footprint.
“Cloud business is a promising segment for Alibaba as it is growing exponentially. We recognise the shift in the region’s demand from clunky IT equipment and servers to streamlined cloud computing solutions,” he said.
Alibaba’s revenue from cloud computing increased by 130 per cent year-over-year to $224 million (Dh823 million) in the second quarter, out of the total $5.14 billion group revenue.
Yu said that the cloud computing market has just opened up and Alibaba is quite a big differentiator in the market in terms of local strategy.
With more than 2.3 million customers worldwide, including 651,000 paying clients as of second quarter, he said the biggest competition is between the three As — Amazon Web Services, Azure (Microsoft) and Alibaba Cloud.
“We are closing the gap between the players and we are the fastest growing player in the market. The company’s long-term goal is to establish cloud computing as the digital foundation for the new global economy using the opportunities of cloud computing to empower businesses of all sizes across all markets,” he said.
He said that Alibaba is looking at few more data centres in the emerging markets, especially in the Middle East and Africa.
Alibaba Cloud’s portfolio at the new data centre will include IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) cloud services including elastic computing, storage and databases which caters to all types of customers from SMEs, government, and enterprise.
“We have a better value proposition against other global players. First of all, it is based in Dubai and offers locally-supported services,” said Fahad Al Hajeri, Chief Executive Officer of YVOLV.
He said the market in Mena is not matured for the cloud services when compared to other regions. Trust is the ‘key word’ for cloud services and with big names likes Alibaba and Meeras, so people trust the liability and availability of the platform.
“Our strategy is to be the one-stop shop for IT solutions for government entities, corporates and SMEs in the Middle East and North Africa region,” he said.
