Chinese smartphones now account for nearly half the global market. Every minute, another Chinese-made car reportedly rolls into Europe. Gamers worldwide are engaging with games and digital experiences made in China. No longer just a byword for affordability, Chinese brands are now frequently described as symbols of innovation and quality.
Driving this expansion, according to industry narratives, is an often overlooked but essential foundation: a cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure that is characterized as stable, efficient, and secure.
On May 22, Alibaba Cloud held a high-profile conference in Hangzhou to promote its role in helping Chinese enterprises expand overseas. The company announced plans to deepen investment in global infrastructure and introduced a so-called “unified global cloud network.” It also committed to accelerating international deployments of its large AI models and offering integrated AI and cloud services across markets.
Pursuing a unified global cloud network
As the saying goes, to craft a fine product, one must first sharpen the tools. For Chinese companies expanding internationally, a robust and globally connected cloud infrastructure is increasingly seen as critical.
Alibaba Cloud asserts that it is building just that, backed by heavy investments and centered around three core technologies.
According to the company, it currently operates 87 availability zones across 29 regions. Its platform offers 394 cloud and AI products and 59 technical services, positioning it—by its own account—as the largest cloud service provider in the Asia Pacific region. Research firm Gartner has reportedly ranked Alibaba Cloud highly in computing, storage, networking, and security among leading global cloud providers.
A standardized operating system lies at the core of this infrastructure, according to Alibaba Cloud. The system is designed to ensure uniform deployment, consistent performance, and automated maintenance across different geographies, allowing companies to scale operations across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South America with minimal friction.
The company claims its platform enables high elasticity and real-time resource allocation, which it says improves operational agility and cost-efficiency for cross-border expansion.
This architecture was put to the test during recent Olympic Games, where Alibaba Cloud supported high-definition live streaming from Tokyo, Beijing, and Paris. The company says it managed traffic spikes with low latency and broadcast-grade output, reportedly outperforming traditional television infrastructure.
Another example is Mobvista, a mobile marketing company operating over 10,000 apps in more than 200 markets. Alibaba Cloud supports the firm with infrastructure capable of launching thousands of computing cores in under three minutes—enabling it to process more than 200 billion ad requests daily, according to company disclosures.
Looking ahead, Alibaba Cloud has announced plans to continue expanding its global data center network throughout the year.
Bringing AI models to the world
A 2024 market report on Chinese enterprise cloud adoption identified a growing trend: future infrastructure will likely be AI-native.
In response, Alibaba Cloud has committed over RMB 380 billion (USD 53.2 billion) over the next three years to upgrade its cloud and AI hardware systems. The company is reworking its full technology stack—from hardware and databases to networking and big data—with AI at the core.
Its “Platform for AI” is presented as an end-to-end training and inference solution, supporting tens of thousands of GPUs. Alibaba Cloud claims it achieves over 90% utilization of AI compute capacity and handles processes ranging from data preparation and model development to deployment.
To further differentiate its offerings, Alibaba Cloud has open sourced a wide array of its large models. These include the Qwen series for language tasks and the Wan series for visual generation. The company states that these models have repeatedly ranked among the most downloaded on Hugging Face and GitHub.
As of now, Alibaba Cloud says it has open sourced more than 200 Qwen models, generating over 100,000 derivatives, making Qwen the largest open-source model family globally by its count.
The latest iteration, Qwen 3, launched in April and is said to have scored competitively on international benchmarks. Supporting 119 languages, including many minority languages, the model is being positioned as a tool to broaden AI accessibility worldwide. According to Alibaba Cloud, it is gaining traction among developers in Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
Chinese smartphone maker Transsion has integrated Qwen into its Phantom V Fold2, enabling users to interact with a large language model offline through a dedicated AI button. This setup supports real-time conversation and document summarization without an internet connection.
Yiwu International Trade City is also using Qwen to power an AI-driven trade assistant. The tool analyzes commercial data via natural language queries, aimed at helping Chinese sellers enhance product design, marketing strategies, and supply chain management while streamlining purchasing for overseas buyers.
To facilitate broader adoption, Alibaba Cloud says its core products are now fully compatible with the model context protocol (MCP), enhancing interoperability across AI systems.
Targeting compliance and service consistency worldwide
Data compliance and cybersecurity remain key concerns for global enterprises.
Alibaba Cloud reports that it holds over 150 international compliance certifications spanning data privacy, security, and industry-specific requirements. These certifications, the company says, help clients meet local regulatory standards and reduce operational risk.
Xpeng Motors, for instance, selected Alibaba Cloud to support its European expansion following a comprehensive compliance evaluation. Similarly, Foton Motor is using the company’s services to build a global connected vehicle platform, which incorporates region-specific database audits and layered security configurations.
To ensure responsive support, Alibaba Cloud operates two global service centers, four regional hubs, and 18 local service teams. The company says this setup allows it to provide round-the-clock multilingual technical assistance regardless of time zone.
Since opening its Hong Kong data center in May 2014, Alibaba Cloud claims to have helped more than 250,000 Chinese businesses expand globally. Its clients span sectors such as e-commerce, aviation, gaming, and manufacturing, and include names like NetEase, Mihoyo, Xiaomi, Midea, Sany, China Eastern Airlines, GAC Group, Mango TV, and GoodWe.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Xiao Xi for 36Kr.