Alibaba opens cloud data centres in UK

BEIJING: The cloud-computing arm of Chinese retail giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd opened its first data centres in the United Kingdom, with two sites operational in London.

“The expansion is driven by the rapidly growing customer demand,” said a spokesman.

“The UK is one of the fastestgrowing European markets for Alibaba Cloud.”

Cloud-computing companies have been opening data centres across Europe — including in the UK — despite the looming uncertainty of Britain’s future relationship with the European Union.

The drive is fuelled in part by government demands: National authorities have increasingly moved computing functions into the cloud, but for regulatory and security purposes they’re often required to hold data within their national borders.

Alibaba Cloud has expanded beyond China in a direct challenge to Amazon Web Services, the e-commerce giant’s division that dominates cloud computing.

Alibaba Cloud is the fourthbiggest global provider of cloud infrastructure and related services, behind Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc’s Google, according to a June report by Synergy Research Group.

The company put its first European data centre in Frankfurt, in partnership with Vodafone Group Plc in 2016, allowing the mobile carrier to resell Alibaba Cloud services such as data storage and analytics.