Alibaba Cloud to open data centres in Turkey, Finland and Netherlands as part of global expansion

Alibaba Cloud is accelerating its global expansion by launching its first cloud regions in Turkey, Finland, and the Netherlands, alongside expanding capacity in Germany, France, the UAE, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. This infrastructure push supports Alibaba's goal of building a 20-gigawatt global data centre network by 2032. The expansion occurs amid escalating US-China tech rivalry, prompting Alibaba to develop its own powerful AI chips, like the Zhenwu V900, and train massive foundation models.

Data Centre Expansion

• ▪CTO Li Feifei said Alibaba Cloud will expand its existing data centre footprint in Malaysia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Hong Kong over the next 12 months to boost localized cloud and artificial intelligence services
• ▪Alibaba plans to build a 20-gigawatt global data centre network by 2032, an infrastructure buildout that Citigroup estimates could generate more than $160 billion in external cloud revenue.
• ▪Alibaba Cloud will establish its first cloud regions in Turkey, Finland, and the Netherlands over the next 12 months, with the first of these new data centres scheduled to open in the Netherlands in October 2026.

Apsara Tech Summit

• ▪Alibaba launched its annual Apsara tech summit in Hangzhou in September 2026 to demonstrate its full-stack artificial intelligence capabilities.
• ▪Alibaba Cloud announced partnerships with Panasonic Digital, Unity China, Indonesian logistics group Lion Parcel, Malaysia's Loomi Entertainment, and business software provider Shake during Alibaba's annual flagship Apsara Conference in Hangzhou

US-China Tech Competition

• ▪The United States government has implemented export controls on advanced semiconductors to slow China's progress in artificial intelligence, blocking access to top-end U.S. chips such as those from Nvidia.
• ▪Alibaba Cloud's global expansion occurs amid escalating competition between China and the United States in artificial intelligence chips and models, ahead of a meeting in Washington between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump

Zhenwu AI Chips

• ▪The Alibaba Zhenwu M890 chip is widely believed to be two times more powerful than the Nvidia H20 chip, which was custom-made by the U.S. chipmaker for the Chinese market.
• ▪Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu unveiled the Zhenwu V900 artificial intelligence chip, claiming it is China's most powerful AI chip and delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890.

AI Model Development

• ▪Alibaba's Qwen model is currently among the world's most downloaded artificial intelligence models.
• ▪Alibaba is training new foundation models with five trillion to 10 trillion parameters, which Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu stated would make the model several times larger than the current largest Chinese model.

Debatable claims

• ▪US chip export controls are failing to contain Chinese AI development
• ▪European countries should block Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure expansion