02-07-2025
Alibaba Cloud boosts APAC presence with new AI centre, data hubs
Alibaba Cloud has announced the launch of new data centres in Malaysia and the Philippines and the establishment of its first AI Global Competency Center in Singapore as part of its continued expansion across Asia Pacific and other regions.
The announcement coincides with Alibaba Cloud's tenth anniversary in Singapore and the tenth year since it established its international headquarters in the city state. The company also revealed new upgrades to its cloud and AI technologies and released findings from a global study on green AI adoption.
Regional expansion
Alibaba Cloud has confirmed the opening of its third data centre in Malaysia and outlined plans to launch a second facility in the Philippines in the coming months. These additions follow recent infrastructure investments made in Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea earlier in the year.
The company said the investments aim to support the rising demand for secure and scalable cloud solutions as more industries increase AI adoption. The expanded network is intended to provide capacity for businesses, developers, and organisations to innovate and manage growth across new markets.
AI Global Competency Center
Alibaba Cloud has launched its AI Global Competency Center (AIGCC) in Singapore. The centre targets support for more than 5,000 businesses and 100,000 developers worldwide, providing access to AI models, advanced computing resources, and an AI innovation lab. The lab offers token credits, datasets, and personalised support designed around industry needs.
The AIGCC will engage over 1,000 companies and startups to co-develop AI solutions, and will introduce more than 10 AI agents for use in sectors such as finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and energy. Alibaba Cloud has also committed to partnering with over 120 universities and institutions globally to train 100,000 AI professionals each year. Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said, "Over the past decade, Singapore has been both an innovation center and a gateway to the region's digital economy. As we celebrate this important milestone, we reaffirm our commitment to empowering businesses of all sizes and verticals while advancing cutting-edge AI innovations and driving sustainable digital transformation in Singapore for years to come. Together with our partners and customers, we look forward to shaping Singapore's future as a global leader in AI and cloud innovation."
Technology developments
Among the new cloud products presented, Alibaba Cloud has released upgrades to its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings. The Data Transmission Service (DTS) now features "One Channel For AI", which manages both unstructured and structured data—ranging from documents to multimedia—into vector databases. This enables developers to create knowledge bases and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications more efficiently.
The Platform for AI (PAI) has improved its inference capabilities, including optimisations for complex model architectures such as Mixture of Experts. A new feature, Expert Parallel (EP), aims to increase throughput for large language models (LLMs) while conserving computational resources. The Model Weights Service now allows for faster startup and scaling times, demonstrated by tests showing cold starts accelerated by up to 91.4% on certain models.
Alibaba Cloud's ninth-generation Intel-based Enterprise Elastic Compute Service instances will be rolled out to new global markets, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Germany, and the UK. This model, first launched in April, reportedly offers 20% better computing efficiency compared to prior versions, with performance improvements of up to 50% for specific workloads.
The company's sustainability platform, Energy Expert, has introduced an AI-driven ESG reporting solution built on Alibaba's own model, Qwen. This platform aims to streamline ESG report generation and compliance, providing automated content creation and structured guidance for organisations needing to align with international standards such as ISSB, GRI, and SASB.
Findings on green AI
Alibaba Cloud has published results from a global Forrester Consulting survey on green AI, in collaboration with NTU Global e-Sustainability CorpLab. The survey—of over 464 business and IT leaders—revealed 84% of those with sustainability strategies regard green AI as important, but 69% of organisations remain at an early stage of adoption.
Key barriers identified included a lack of sustainably sourced AI hardware materials and challenges in optimising data centre energy use. Significant skills and knowledge gaps were also reported, with 74% indicating uncertainty around defining green AI strategies and 76% lacking operational expertise in the field. The study recommends strategies like powering data centres with renewable energy, optimising models for edge computing, and enhancing regulatory collaboration.
Customer engagement
Several international clients were highlighted for their collaborations with Alibaba Cloud. These include GoTo Group, which migrated its business intelligence platform to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute solution, aiming for greater scalability and resilience. William Xiong, Group Chief Technology Officer of GoTo Group, said during the summit, "The migration to Alibaba Cloud's MaxCompute has enhanced the scalability and resilience of our data platform. By delivering cost efficiency, performance parity, and operational continuity, this collaboration strengthens the technical foundation for GoTo's ecosystem. This partnership positions us to drive innovation and deliver transformative solutions for millions of users across the ecosystem, while staying aligned with Indonesia's data sovereignty goals."
GoTo Financial also reported efficiency gains through Alibaba Cloud's database products, including PolarDB and Tair, which now support over 500 microservices with low latency.
Qwen, Alibaba's large language model family, continues to be deployed in numerous markets. VisionTech, based in Singapore, has integrated Qwen into its generative AI platform to support multilingual operations. The company reports a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs and improved response times as a result. "Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud allows us to deliver smarter, scalable, and enterprise-ready AI solutions while maintaining operational efficiency and customer satisfaction," said Lim Hui Jie, CEO of VisionTech. "Qwen's strong performance in handling multilingual conversational inputs and real-time translation gives us a distinct edge over other LLMs, enabling us to fast-track deployments and improve user engagement— whether it's English, Chinese, Malay, or Japanese. By dynamically switching languages in real-time, our AI bots create a seamless experience that resonates with users in various markets, ensuring that our solutions feel native and culturally aligned."
FLUX in Japan and Al-Futtaim in the Middle East have also joined partnerships with Alibaba Cloud, focusing on deploying Qwen-based solutions and expanding the reach of AI-powered services in their respective markets.
