Chinese e-commerce and internet technology giant Alibaba Group has opened its first data center in Thailand to tap into the country’s growing cloud market. The Bangkok data center came online last month and is operated by Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba’s cloud computing services arm. A new company, Alibaba Cloud (Thailand), has a registered capital of 1.06 billion baht ($30 million), according to the Thai government’s business development department. “Thailand is one of the strategic countries to offer our cloud services,” said Tyler Qiu, country manager of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Thailand, in a virtual press conference…
Chinese e-commerce and internet technology giant Alibaba Group has opened its first data center in Thailand to tap into the country’s growing cloud market.
The Bangkok data center came online last month and is operated by Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba’s cloud computing services arm. A new company, Alibaba Cloud (Thailand), has a registered capital of 1.06 billion baht ($30 million), according to the Thai government’s business development department.
“Thailand is one of the strategic countries to provide our cloud services,” said Tyler Qiu, country manager of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Thailand, during a virtual press conference on May 12.
One of 27 cloud regions
Bangkok is one of Alibaba Cloud’s 27 regions — “regions” describe the geographic areas where the company’s data centers are physically deployed to reach as many customers as possible.
Alibaba Cloud has a total of 84 cloud service availability zones covering more than 200 countries. In Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta and Manila also serve as Alibaba Cloud regions.
The company did not disclose the size of the Bangkok data center investment or its location, citing security concerns.
Thailand’s cloud market to reach $2.4 billion by 2025
According to a study by US market research firm Gartner, Thailand’s cloud market is worth US$620 million in 2020 from platform and software-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service terms. The market is expected to reach $2.4 billion by 2025 and is expected to grow by more than 40% annually from 2022, according to the study.
Leading cloud customers in the country include those in digital media, finance, retail and manufacturing.
In 2021, Alibaba Cloud will be the third largest infrastructure-as-a-service provider in the world and the largest provider in the Asia-Pacific region by revenue.
