Latest Alibaba publications

The LCPP was created to encourage technology companies to band together, to make key patents available to any interested party to accelerate the adoption of low-carbon technologies. Patents available for sharing are those that include “the generation, storage, and distribution of low carbon energy.”

New figures show spending on cloud infrastructure in China grew by 67 percent in Q1.

IT analyst firm Canalys posted the country’s latest cloud sums last week, after a quarter that has seen demand for cloud services soar around the world.

While Covid-19 has caused some large cloud projects to be put on hold, business demand for remote working and collaboration platforms have driven a record quarter for global cloud markets.

Alibaba has announced plans to plough $28 billion into its cloud division over the next three years following a surge in demand for cloud services that assist remote working.

The majority of the investment will fund an expansion of Alibaba’s cloud operating system and servers and chips for its data centres. Alibaba Cloud currently has 63 availability zones, located in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

We’re now living in a multi-cloud world. More businesses than ever are deploying a multi-cloud strategy and reaping the benefits. The numbers speak for themselves – with Cisco estimating that more than half of enterprises already use an average of four different cloud vendors, and Gartner predicting that 70 percent of enterprises will employ a multicloud strategy by the end of this year.

When it comes to choosing cloud providers to meet different technical or business requirements, the  “big three” providers Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud (GCP) and Microsoft Azure, are well known to businesses. However, there’s a new kid on the cloud block that’s looking to challenge these players’ dominant market position – Alibaba Cloud.

In fact, having seen enormous growth in the last few years since opening its first data centre in the US in 2015, Alibaba Cloud is now the third biggest cloud provider after Amazon and Microsoft, with a 7.7 percent share last year. For businesses looking to develop a successful multi-cloud strategy, Alibaba Cloud is now a serious contender in the cloud race and is increasingly being considered as a potential cloud partner.

Arrow Electronics has penned a distribution deal with Alibaba Cloud that will see the company distribute the Chinese cloud giant’s full suite of cloud services across EMEA and become the UK’s sole Alibaba Cloud distributor.

Alibaba Cloud dominates China’s $14bn cloud market and has had its eyes on Europe for some time — a market that IDC predicts to grow at a 22 percent rate for the next three years. Last year, the company launched two London data centres and has been forging partner relationships across EMEA since.