Alibaba expands cloud network with 20 GW data center plan

Alibaba Group Holding is accelerating its international data center expansion across Europe and the Middle East. Over the next 12 months, the company will open its first cloud regions in Turkey, Finland and the Netherlands, as announced on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at its annual Apsara conference in Hangzhou.

The company will also expand existing infrastructure in Malaysia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France and Hong Kong. In recent months, Alibaba added facilities in Brazil and France to deliver localized cloud and generative AI services, competing directly against Amazon.com and Alphabet outside Asia.

The international rollout supports Alibaba's plan to build a 20-gigawatt global data center network by 2032. Citigroup estimates that this infrastructure buildout could generate more than $160 billion in external cloud revenue. The group outlined a $53 billion, three-year AI investment plan in 2025 and indicated capital spending will continue to increase.

Alongside its infrastructure plans, Alibaba unveiled a new line of domestic AI chips designed for frontier-model training. The company also announced it is training foundation models featuring between 5 trillion and 10 trillion parameters.