Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing and artificial intelligence division of Alibaba Group, has announced the opening of its third data centre in Malaysia. This move is aimed at addressing the rising demand for cloud and AI services across Southeast Asia.
The latest expansion is part of Alibaba’s growing ambitions beyond its core e-commerce operations in China. In recent years, the company has accelerated its efforts in artificial intelligence, developing standalone AI products built around its in-house Qwen model family. The newest version, Qwen 3, supports 119 languages and has shown strong capabilities in multilingual mathematical reasoning and translation, particularly in Asian languages.
Apart from Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud also confirmed plans to open a second data centre in the Philippines by October this year. This follows earlier infrastructure investment announcements covering Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea, with deployments scheduled for the first half of 2025.
Additionally, commemorating its 10-year anniversary in Singapore, Alibaba Cloud announced it is establishing a global competency centre in the country to support the adoption of AI across various industries. The centre is expected to assist over 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers by providing access to advanced AI models and tools, further reinforcing Alibaba’s push to expand its cloud and AI footprint globally.
(Source: Alibaba Cloud press release)
