Alibaba launches first data centre in Silicon Valley amid ramped-up US expansion
E-commerce giant opens first overseas data centre in Silicon Valley, hoping to initially attract Chinese firms with US operations
Alibaba Group, the world's biggest e-commerce services provider, is ratcheting up its business expansion in the United States, with the launch yesterday of its first overseas-based data centre in California's Silicon Valley.
The new facility run by Aliyun, the cloud computing operation of Hangzhou-based Alibaba, faces stiff competition in a vast market where the likes of Equinix, Rackspace, Digital Realty, Century Link Technology Solutions, AT&T, Verizon, IBM and Amazon Web Services are among the leading providers of data hosting, co-location and cloud-computing platform services.
Cloud services enable companies to buy, lease, sell or distribute software and other digital resources online, just like electricity from a power grid. Data centres host and manage cloud services and applications.
Ethan Yu Sicheng, a vice-president at Aliyun, said the firm's new data centre would initially target Chinese enterprises with operations in the US. "Aliyun offers top-notch cloud-computing products and services at competitive prices," he said.
Data centres are secure, temperature-controlled facilities built to house large-capacity servers and data-storage systems, as well as have multiple power sources and high-bandwidth internet connections.