Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), said Monday that it will invest an additional RMB 200 billion (approximately USD 28 billion) in its cloud infrastructure over the next three years. It will focus on technologies including operating system, servers, chips, and networks, according to a company press release.
Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said these investments are aimed at helping businesses speed up digital transformation to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company has been busy developing proprietary technologies across the board, including the Apsara Distributed Operating System, which it launched in 2018, the Hanguang 800 AI-inference chip, unveiled last year, and network devices like the VSwitch.
Alibaba Cloud is currently the fourth largest cloud computing service provider worldwide by estimated 2020 run rates, following Amazon Web Services in first, then Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
This article is part of KrASIA’s “China Brief” section, where KrASIA’s reporters will provide quick daily updates about the tech ecosystem in China.