Alibaba to invest $28bn in cloud infrastructure

Alibaba Cloud announced on Monday it would be investing another $28bn into its infrastructure over the next three years as demand for video conferencing and live streaming services rise.

The investment will focus on expanding Alibaba Cloud’s technology, including its operating system, servers and chips, at its data centers. The investment was spurred by heightened demand globally in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Asian giant currently has 63 availability zones, located throughout Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence and chief technology officer of Alibaba Group, said, “By increasing our investment on cloud infrastructure and fundamental technologies, we hope to continue providing world-class, trusted computing resources to help businesses speed up the recovery process, and offer cloud-based intelligent solutions to support their digital transformation in the post-pandemic world.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has posed additional stress on the overall economy across sectors, but it also steers us to put more focus on the digital economy,” Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said in a statement.