Alibaba Cloud strengthens its presence in Southeast Asia with new data centers and training hub

The Chinese cloud company is adding more data centers in the region with including one planned in Malaysia and the other in the Philippines.

It’s been ten years since Alibaba Cloud marked debut in Singapore. Since then, the Chinese cloud company continues grows its presence in the region, establishing itself not only as a strong cloud service provider but also in supporting businesses in the region with their digital and AI journey.

In conjunction with its 10th anniversary in Singapore, Alibaba Cloud announced several new updates tied to AI and cloud growth across Southeast Asia. At its recent Global Summit in Singapore, the company introduced new data centers, an AI training hub, upgraded infrastructure tools, and a global study on green AI. The event brought together more than 500 business and tech leaders.

Singapore continues to play a central role in Alibaba Cloud's international operations. Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, called the country both a regional gateway and a testing ground for AI and cloud solutions. She said the company plans to support businesses of all sizes while helping shape Singapore's role in AI development.

As part of its regional expansion, Alibaba Cloud will open a third data center in Malaysia this July and a second one in the Philippines by October. These sites follow earlier builds in Thailand, Mexico, and South Korea. The company says the additional infrastructure is meant to support growing demand for AI tools and cloud services in the region.

A new AI Global Competency Center (AIGCC) has also been launched in Singapore. The center aims to help 5,000 companies and 100,000 developers with training, computing resources, and access to AI models. It also includes an AI lab that provides token credits, datasets, and support for developers.

The AIGCC plans to bring in over 1,000 organizations to build industry-specific AI tools for sectors such as healthcare, logistics, and energy. It's also working with more than 120 universities to train 100,000 AI professionals annually.

Several product updates were announced as well. A new "One Channel for AI" feature in Alibaba Cloud's data streaming service automates the conversion of data into vector format, helping businesses create RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) apps more easily. Updates to its AI platform PAI-EAS now improve support for complex AI models, offering faster cold starts and more efficient use of computing power.

In addition, the company plans to roll out its ninth-generation ECS compute instances to other countries. These instances are designed to manage workloads such as search, high-performance computing, and in-memory databases. They use faster memory access tech to boost performance.

A new AI-based ESG reporting tool has also been added to its sustainability platform. Built around Alibaba's Qwen model, the tool helps companies prepare reports that meet global standards while keeping data organized for audits.

At the summit, Alibaba also shared results from a study on green AI. While most business leaders see value in reducing AI's energy impact, many say they lack the tools, skills, or hardware needed to follow through. The study suggests using smaller models, renewable energy, and open-source tools to lower energy use and support adoption.

Customers such as GoTo Group, VisionTech, and FLUX are already using Alibaba Cloud for AI workloads and cloud migration. Some rely on Qwen's multilingual features to support services in markets across Asia. Others are using the tools to improve scalability, data management, and real-time deployment.