Aliyun Launches Data Centre And New Headquarters In Singapore

Aliyun, the cloud computing division of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is opening a data centre in Singapore, where its overseas business will now also be headquartered.

The move is the latest evolution of Aliyun growing cloud presence, and the latest advance on major cloud rival Amazon Web Services, also a division of an e-commerce giant: Amazon.com.

“Milestone”

“The cloud data centre in Singapore is a key milestone in our strategy to help businesses of all sizes innovate and scale,” said Ethan Yu, Vice President of Aliyun.

The data centre, as well the offices, come off the back of a recent $1 billion investment into Aliyun, provided by Alibaba.

“Singapore is a natural destination to be our headquarters for overseas expansion. The city state is a natural springboard into the Asia Pacific region, not only for us, but for our target audience,” reckons Yu.

“We are seeing healthy demand for cloud-related data management services in Singapore because of the ease of doing business, comprehensive transport and telecommunications connections and robust intellectual property regime. The stable geo-political climate and abundance of highly skilled talent are advantages too.”

Last month, Aliyun president Simon Hu said that his firm’s goal is to overtake Amazon within four years, in terms of a triumvirate of customers, technology and worldwide scale.

“Amazon, Microsoft and others have already laid the groundwork for us by educating the markets about cloud in the U.S. and Europe, so we have an even better opportunity to join in the competition,” he said.

Alibaba, in March, opened its first ever cloud computing data centre in the US, located in Silicon Valley. This will be Aliyun’s US expansion headquarters.

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