Alibaba Cloud is accelerating its global cloud and AI strategy with a series of major investments in infrastructure and advanced technologies across Asia and beyond.
The cloud arm of Alibaba Group recently inaugurated its third data center in Malaysia and announced plans to launch a second data center in the Philippines by October 2025, further expanding its Southeast Asia footprint. These moves follow earlier investments in Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea, reinforcing its commitment to delivering secure, resilient, and scalable cloud services to meet the surging demand driven by AI adoption.
In Singapore, marking a decade of regional operations, Alibaba Cloud unveiled a major initiative with the launch of its first AI Global Competency Center (AIGCC). This hub is designed to support over 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers, enabling them to access cutting-edge AI models, computing power, and curated datasets.
The center also serves as a collaborative platform for over 1,000 companies and startups to co-develop AI applications across sectors such as finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and energy, Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said.
To support this ecosystem, Alibaba Cloud is partnering with over 120 universities and institutions globally, aiming to train 100,000 AI professionals annually, addressing the growing talent gap in AI innovation.
The company also introduced new AI-enhanced cloud services, including upgrades to its Data Transmission Service (DTS) and Platform for AI (PAI). These tools simplify the development of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications and large language model (LLM) deployments. Key improvements include:
“One Channel for AI” in DTS for seamless multimodal data processing.
Expert Parallel (EP) optimization in PAI-EAS for efficient Mixture of Experts (MoE) inference.
Model Weights Service for near-instant cold starts and scaling.
Performance tests show up to 91 percent faster cold starts and TPS exceeding 15,000 for models like Qwen3 235B, highlighting Alibaba Cloud’s strength in serving AI workloads.
Additionally, its 9th Gen Enterprise ECS instances — featuring 20 percent better compute efficiency and up to 50 percent higher performance in HPC and database workloads — are now expanding into Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, UAE, Germany, and the UK, following adoption by nearly 10,000 businesses since April.
How Alibaba Cloud AI Is Assisting Global Customers
Alibaba Cloud is playing a pivotal role in accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and digital transformation for enterprises across Asia, the Middle East, and beyond. By offering advanced cloud infrastructure, powerful AI tools like its large language model (LLM) family Qwen, and scalable data solutions, Alibaba Cloud is enabling customers to build intelligent, multilingual, and high-performance applications with greater agility and cost-efficiency.
Key Global Customers Benefiting from Alibaba Cloud AI
- GoTo Group (Indonesia)
Use Case: Infrastructure and data platform modernization
Solutions Used: Alibaba Cloud’s MaxCompute, PolarDB, and Tair
Impact:
Migrated core business intelligence data platform with zero downtime
Enhanced data scalability and cost efficiency
Supported over 500 microservices in lending operations
Aligned with Indonesia’s data sovereignty goals
- VisionTech (Singapore and Southeast Asia)
Use Case: Generative AI for sales, customer service, and automation
Solutions Used: Elastic Compute Service (ECS), Qwen LLM
Impact:
Reduced infrastructure costs by over 25 percent
Improved AI deployment speeds and support turnaround times
Delivered multilingual conversational AI with real-time translation in English, Chinese, Malay, and Japanese
Enabled seamless customer interactions tailored to regional languages and cultures
- FLUX (Japan)
Use Case: GenAI enablement for Japanese enterprises
Solutions Used: Qwen LLM family, including various model sizes
Impact:
Empowered businesses of all sizes to embed generative AI into workflows
Supported operational optimization and improved service delivery
Development of the FLUX LLM solution tailored for Japan’s market needs
- Al-Futtaim Group (Middle East, North Africa, and Asia)
Use Case: Enterprise-wide AI transformation and market expansion
Solutions Used: Alibaba Cloud’s AI foundation models, global cloud infrastructure
Impact:
Enabled AI innovation across business units spanning 18 countries
Supported global expansion plans and sector-wide digital transformation
Leveraged open-source frameworks and AI capabilities for scalable innovation
Qwen LLM: Powering Multilingual AI Innovation
At the heart of many of these deployments is Qwen, Alibaba Cloud’s large language model family. The latest version, Qwen 3, supports 119 languages and excels in multilingual reasoning and translation, particularly in Asian languages. Its versatility has made it a cornerstone for companies building region-specific, intelligent AI solutions.
InfotechLead.com News Desk
