The COVID-19 pandemic has managed to shatter all of mankind, but the technology still holds on. As the demand for cloud services is going higher during the COVID-19 crisis and most certainly is expected to go beyond, Alibaba is all set to spend USD 28 billion to enhance its offerings.
The Chinese multinational, also recognized as one of the world’s largest cloud providers, explains its plans to spend the amount on developing next-gen data centers along with building on technologies such as semiconductors and servers.
As the coronavirus pandemic increases, the demand for cloud services for facilitating computing and enabling work from anywhere and at any time is bound to increase. Therefore, Alibaba has declared a three-year investment plan to boost internet infrastructure with a commitment to spend RMB 200 billion or an equivalent amount of USD 28 billion.
The funding announced by Alibaba works out to approximately RMB 67 billion per year. It indeed is a substantial increase in Alibaba’s total capital expenditure that amounted to RMB 35.5 billion as per the latest financial year.
More on Alibaba’s cloud development plan
Just like several other cloud service providers, cloud business and remote working apps by Alibaba, such as DingDing (a workplace chat app), are witnessing a boost as the pandemic forces the masses to work remotely from their own homes.
Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, expresses his concern over the pandemic; about the additional stress caused to the global economy and mentioned how it is encouraging us all to pay more attention to the digital economy.
Sean Roberts, General Manager of Public Cloud at Ensono, said, “The coronavirus pandemic has evidently not held back Alibaba’s ambitions. This latest investment is a clear signal from the business that it is hoping to rival Amazon and Microsoft in non-Chinese markets. It is also an indication that Alibaba is rebutting rising competition from its domestic cloud rivals Baidu and Tencent.
He also mentioned that the pandemic is expected to generate long-term growth in the cloud, and Alibaba has plans to seize some part of this emerging market.