Alibaba Cloud To Shut Down Australia, India Data Centres

Alibaba Cloud, mainland China’s biggest cloud provider, is to shut down its data centres in Australia and India as it prioritises expansion in other markets.

In an “infrastructure strategy update” the company said it had made the decision after a “careful assessment”.

The move will aid its efforts to “expand investment in Southeast Asia and Mexico”, the company said.

Service in India is to be suspended after 15 July and in Australia after 30 September.

Market shift

Customers in those regions have been notified to move their business to data centres in Singapore and other regions.

Alibaba launched its Sydney cloud region in 2016 and the Mumbai region in
2018. Both offer two availability zones.

The company currently offers 89 availability zones in 30 worldwide regions.

In May it announced plans for a Mexico region and said it would establish data centres in new markets including Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea over the next three years.

Alibaba is looking to attract more cloud customers in major markets amidst geopolitical tensions that have cut off its supply of advanced chips used to power artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Last November, following the October introduction of new US export controls, Alibaba called off a planned spin-off of the cloud unit, saying the restrictions had “created uncertainties for the prospects of Cloud Intelligence Group” and that a full spin-off “may not achieve the intended effect of shareholder value enhancement”.

Geopolitical turmoil

In March the group similarly cancelled plans to spin off its logistics unit, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, and to list the unit on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Both projects were part of a plan announced in March 2023 to break up Alibaba Group into multiple independent entities in a major restructure.

The plan followed years of regulatory uncertainty that had seen co-founder Jack Ma keeping a low profile and spending much of his time outside of China.

The restructure was announced just after Ma’s return to the country after a year’s absence.