Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, announced Thursday it will launch its second data center in South Korea by the end of June 2025 in response to the growing demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) services from local businesses.

The firm said in a statement that the investment – made three years after the establishment of its first data center in South Korea in 2022 – demonstrates its continued commitment to investing in South Korea, fostering AI transformation among local businesses.

This launch is in response to the anticipated demand for AI infrastructure, driven by the increased adoption of generative AI services.

The launch of the second data also marks a milestone in Alibaba Cloud’s efforts to diversify its products and services in South Korea.

With the new data center, the firm will broaden its product offerings to include a wider selection of cloud-native, big data, and database products that better support customers’ AI applications.

It will bring significant improvements in cloud resilience and network performance, along with enhanced capabilities for high availability and disaster recovery for core cloud products.

“In line with the rapid advancement of AI-based technologies and increasing digital demand across industries, Alibaba Cloud has been continuously expanding its infrastructure in South Korea,

“Through the launch of this second data center, Alibaba Cloud will provide customers with more resilient and adaptable cloud environments, ultimately fostering AI innovation across various sectors and expanding the digital ecosystem,” said Yoon Yong-joon, Country Manager of South Korea, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

Alibaba Cloud entered the South Korea market in 2016. It has since offered scalable, secure and cost-effective services, to help drive digital transformation for a large variety of industries in South Korea while supporting their global expansion outside of South Korea.

Some of them have leveraged Alibaba Cloud’s flagship large language model Qwen and its scalable global cloud infrastructure to deliver innovative solutions.

Alibaba Cloud built its first data centre in the country in March 2022.

As the world’s leading and Asia Pacific’s leading Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) service provider, the firm has received the Korea Information Security Management System (K-ISMS) certification for its datacenter infrastructure in South Korea in December 2023.

As the most recognized information security certification in South Korea, K-ISMS ensures that Alibaba Cloud’s services and practices are in line with stringent compliance regulations, and enables enterprise customers to enjoy cloud services with enhanced protection.

Univa, an AI solutions provider in South Korea, has recently unveiled its ‘Agent AI’ solution, powered by Alibaba Cloud’s generative AI technology and robust cloud infrastructure.

Snow, a subsidiary of Naver, has also leveraged Alibaba Cloud’s advanced AI video generation model Wan to support its app’s image stylization function in China.

Lala Station, a South Korean livestreaming company, has also successfully expanded its business into the Southeast Asian market through a collaboration with Alibaba Cloud that began in 2022.

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, big data analytics, machine learning and AI services.

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