Alibaba is planning to open its first data centers in South Korea and Thailand in 2022 as the technology giant aims to expand its cloud business in overseas markets.
The e-commerce giant is the #1 cloud computing player in China but has focused on expanding its footprint internationally, particularly into other areas of Asia, including Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.
China-based Alibaba competes against U.S. based Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Alibaba announced the plans on Wednesday at its Apsara Conference along with a number of other new cloud products.
Alibaba earlier launched a new chip called Yitian 710 that will go into servers called Panjiu. The aim is to power artificial intelligence applications on Alibaba’s cloud.
Cloud computing is seen as a key profit driver for Alibaba, though it accounts for around 8 percent of the company’s total revenue at the moment. E-commerce remains its core business, CNBC reported.
