Alibaba Cloud is getting ready to open its second knowledge centre in South Korea by the top of June 2025, as demand for AI infrastructure grows within the area. The transfer provides to the corporate’s efforts to broaden internationally and hold tempo with the rise in curiosity in generative AI instruments and companies.
“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 prospects run extra versatile and dependable methods constructed for AI.”
Information 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 price 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.
Progress 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 top of the last decade. Nationwide programmes targeted on AI, sensible cities, and digital companies 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 satisfy native necessities round knowledge dealing with, and lower latency for purchasers. By organising infrastructure on the bottom, Alibaba Cloud has been capable of provide alternate options to bigger US suppliers like AWS and Microsoft Azure. Its companies are utilized in sectors together with e-commerce, logistics, gaming, and AI.
In South Korea, firms like Univa and the Naver-backed app Snow have used Alibaba Cloud’s AI fashions to develop their companies. Snow affords real-time options like video filters and AR instruments, that are more and more widespread in Asia. Univa applies cloud-based AI to enhance its enterprise choices, serving to pace up mannequin coaching and inference.
Alibaba’s broader funding in AI has additionally been ramping up. Based on the South China Morning Put up, the corporate has put aside greater than US$50 billion for the subsequent 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 yr, 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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