Alibaba opens 2nd data centre in USA, looks towards Europe

By having an increasing number of data centers spread worldwide, Alibaba is hoping fast-growing start-ups, especially those in Silicon Valley, will begin to use its services as they look to tap the Chinese market.

AliCloud, the cloud computing business of Alibaba Group, said today that it has opened its second data center in the U.S. Like its first stateside data center, the new one is in Silicon Valley, but Alibaba has not disclosed exactly where it is or how large it is.

The new United States data centre is created to accommodate the cloud and big data requirements of customers in the West Coast for the next three to five years, the company said in its statement.

The Chinese firm, best known for its portfolio of e-commerce services, launched its first data centre in Silicon Valley back in March as part of an ambitious $1 billion cloud investment drive.

Alibaba is betting on Internet-based computing and big data to boost growth in the next decade, tapping into demand for processing and storage from governments, finance and online gaming companies. AliCloud, which maintains data centers in Beijing, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai in China, also plans more facilities in other locations in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Explaining the decision to launch another data centre at the world famous tech hub, Ethan Sicheng Yu, vice president of AliCloud, said that it matched the company’s commitment to innovation.

AliCloud said it will also be seeking local partners in the PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) areas, as well as developers dedicated to open source projects, to work with AliCloud.