Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud computing unit plans to shut down its data centres in Australia and India, as the company prioritises infrastructure spending in other markets.
Citing the move as part of its “infrastructure strategy update”, Alibaba Cloud said the decision was made after a “careful assessment” amid new efforts to “expand investment in Southeast Asia and Mexico”, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba Cloud plans to suspend its data-centre services in India after July 15, while its facilities in Australia will cease operations after September 30. The company said it has notified customers in those two countries to move their business to its data centres in Singapore and other countries.
The affected data-centre zones – which refer to areas with either one or multiple facilities – are in Sydney, which was set up in 2016, and in Mumbai, established in 2018.
Cloud computing technology enables enterprises to distribute over the internet a range of software and other digital resources as an on-demand service, just like electricity from a power grid. These resources are stored and managed inside data centres.
Alibaba Cloud still trails major US rivals – including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – which accounted for 31 per cent, 26 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, of the global cloud infrastructure services market in the fourth quarter last year, according to data from tech research firm Canalys.
Last month, Alibaba Cloud unveiled plans to expand into certain key markets over the next three years. The company is set to to build its cloud facilities in Mexico, while setting up new data centres in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea by 2027.