Alibaba to add data centres in Europe, Middle East amid AI push, US-China tech race
It is increasingly going head-to-head with Western rivals Amazon and Alphabet in regions beyond Asia
Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, is expanding its data centre infrastructure in Europe and the Middle East to compete with Western tech leaders such as Amazon and Alphabet in the artificial intelligence race. Over the next year, the company plans to establish its first cloud regions in Turkey, Finland, and the Netherlands, according to Alibaba executive Li Feifei during the company's Apsara conference in Hangzhou.
Additionally, Alibaba will increase its data centre presence in Malaysia, Germany, the UAE, France, and Hong Kong. These moves aim to bolster its capacity to deliver localized cloud and AI services.
This expansion aligns with China's President Xi Jinping's vision to share the country's technological advancements globally, especially as the US under the Trump administration encourages countries to rely on US technology rather than Chinese alternatives. Alibaba's global cloud network already spans from Japan to Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
In recent months, the company has opened new facilities in Brazil and France to provide generative AI services to local enterprises. Li Feifei, Alibaba's chief technology officer and president of international business for Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, emphasized the company's commitment to working closely with its global ecosystem to make AI scalable, practical, and accessible for businesses.
Alibaba recently launched its annual tech summit in Hangzhou, showcasing its full-stack AI capabilities just days before Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the US in over a decade. At the summit, Alibaba unveiled a new generation of AI chips, claiming they are the most powerful in China, designed for training frontier models. The company also announced plans to develop foundation models with five trillion to 10 trillion parameters, which surpass existing open-weight models.
The hardware and software push is backed by a plan to build a 20 GW global data centre network by 2032, which analysts estimate could generate more than $160 billion in external cloud revenue. This investment reflects China's aggressive spending on digital infrastructure, which it views as crucial for achieving artificial general intelligence. Alibaba revealed a $53 billion, three-year AI investment plan in 2025, with capital spending expected to increase further.
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