Alibaba Cloud to Open First Data Centre in India

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group, on Saturday announced that it will open its first data centre, by early next year, in India, which has the world's second-largest Internet using population.

The data centre will be set up in Mumbai by March 31, 2018, the group said, adding that another one will come up in Jakarta.

The entry of Alibaba in cloud computing in India will add to the fierce competition in the country which already has players like Amazon and Microsoft.

"I believe Alibaba Cloud, as the only global cloud services provider originating from Asia, is uniquely positioned with cultural and contextual advantages to provide innovative data intelligence and computing capabilities to customers in this region," Simon Hu, Senior Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of Alibaba Cloud, said at the 'Computing Conference' in Shanghai.

"Establishing data centres in India and Indonesia will further strengthen our position in the region and across the globe," Hu added.

Alibaba group Vice President Yu Sicheng, had talking to IANS earlier, said India is a potential market for cloud computing, which allows users to store and access data on the Internet rather than the hard drive of a computer and server which are more prone to cyber-attacks.

Together with the recently announced data centre in Malaysia, the company will increase its computing resources in Asia, allowing greater support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) throughout the region with powerful, scalable, cost-effective and secure cloud capabilities.

With the three new data centres planned, Alibaba Cloud will increase its total number of data centre locations to 17, covering mainland China, Australia, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the US.