Alibaba Cloud Launches Data Center in Dubai

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, has announced today the launch of a new data center in Dubai that will be operated by YVOLV, a joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and Meraas Holdings. The first full-fledged public cloud in the region which is hosted at a local data center, will offer a portfolio of services to address the increasing demand for mission-critical, affordable and secure cloud computing in the Middle East.

"We are excited that our global footprint has now expanded to the Middle East which is also a major area covered by China's 'one belt, one road' initiative. With the Dubai data center, our global cloud network will be able to meet enterprises which are going global" said Simon Hu, President of Alibaba Cloud.  

 “As a global leader in cloud computing and big data, we recognize the shift in the region’s demand from clunky IT equipment and servers to streamlined cloud computing solutions,” added Sicheng Yu, Vice President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Global.

“The ease of doing business in Dubai coupled with strong transport and telecommunications infrastructure make this city the perfect choice to house Alibaba Cloud’s high-speed, high-quality and secure cloud services and in turn expand our global footprint”, added Sicheng Yu.

By enabling the digital transformation of businesses, YVOLV will be complementing Alibaba Cloud’s offering to serve customers as they migrate their day to day IT operations to the cloud and developing unique and innovative solutions to help them streamline operations.

“Alibaba Cloud has established a strong reputation as a leading cloud services provider in China and at YVOLV, we are certain that this success can be replicated in the region where innovation is thriving. We remain steadfast in our commitment to articulating the objectives outlined in the Dubai Smart City Initiative and the UAE Vision 2021, and the opening of this data center is a step in the right direction”, said Fahad Al Hajeri, Chief Executive Officer, YVOLV.

Some of the existing regional and global customers of Alibaba Cloud are OneMT, MenaMobile, VSun, Dahua and JollyChic. Intel, who has collaborated with Alibaba Group globally in the areas of Cloud, Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) has joined the event to highlight how cloud usage is driving transformative change across all industries.

“As long-term strategic partner of Alibaba Cloud, we are proud to see Alibaba Cloud’s footprint expand into the MEA region. We are excited to have the latest Intel cloud technology running in the Dubai Data Center to provide superior performance to users in the region”, said Kit Ho Chee, Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Service Provider Sales at Intel.

The benefits of cloud computing cannot be denied. Scalability, affordability, improved agility to deploy solutions and choice between vendors are just some of the reasons why cloud computing is being seen as the need of the hour. Not to mention the fact that it offers an onramp to new computing advances and innovations.  Alibaba Cloud’s portfolio at the new data center will include IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) cloud services including elastic computing, storage and databases which caters to all types of customers from SMEs, Government, and Enterprise.

Alibaba Cloud has also recently signed the number of partnerships in the region. The most recent deals are with Detecon, leading Saudi data center services provider and Chinese Business Hub, which is designed to facilitate the move of Chinese SMEs to the UAE.