Alibaba Cloud to launch new AI data center in Korea

Alibaba Cloud Korea Country Manager Yoon Yong-joon speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of Alibaba Cloud Korea

Alibaba Cloud, a cloud computing unit of Alibaba Group, will launch its second data center in Korea to meet soaring demand for artificial intelligence (AI) services among Korean companies.

During a press briefing Thursday, Alibaba Cloud Korea Country Manager Yoon Yong-joon announced that the new data center will begin operations at the end of this month. The new facility will be located in Seoul, where its first data center is also located.

Alibaba Cloud currently runs 87 data centers, which the company calls available zones, across 29 regions. The second center will mark its 88th data center globally.

“Our second data center represents a significant investment milestone that underscores how strategically Alibaba Group and Alibaba Cloud view the Korean market,” Yoon said.

“With the launch, essential services for developing AI applications, such as big data and databases, will become available within the country, allowing us to better support more Korean customers in their digital transformation.”

Alibaba Cloud did not reveal the capacity of the new data center, the AI accelerators it will use or the amount it invested, but noted that it “matches what other hyperscalers (large-scale cloud service providers) offer,” and added, “It is part of Alibaba Cloud’s previous pledge to invest 70 trillion won ($50.78 billion) in AI and the cloud computing business.”

The investment came three years after the company established its first data center in Korea. The company said it decided to open the new center to proactively respond to the explosive growth in demand for AI infrastructure in the wake of various generative AI services.

Yoon stressed that the second data center will address customers’ growing demand for high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR), which refer to a business’s capability to minimize disruptions and recover from them, respectively.

Currently, clients in Korea can establish their primary cloud system through Alibaba Cloud’s existing data center, but have to set up a backup system in Japan. When the new center begins operations, clients can have their primary and backup systems both in data centers in Korea, thus improving their HA and DR capabilities.

“There are clients who find it sensitive to send their data overseas, and the new center became a principal infrastructure for our proposals for such clients,” Yoon said.

During the event, concerns were raised about Alibaba Cloud’s reliability, particularly due to Chinese laws such as the Cybersecurity Law, which requires Chinese companies operating both domestically and abroad to provide data to the Chinese government upon request under certain circumstances.

The company said it is meeting more than 150 global compliance standards and has obtained the most stringent certifications, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliance and Korea’s Information Security Management System (ISMS) certificate.

“Under the ISMS certification we obtained in December 2023, it is mandatory that Korean data not be transferred overseas,” Alibaba Cloud Tech team lead in Korea Lim Jong-jin said, adding that Korean user data is not exported abroad.

“In line with the rapid advancement of AI-based technologies and increasing digital demand across industries, Alibaba Cloud has been continuously expanding its infrastructure in Korea,” Yoon said. “Through the launch of this second data center, Alibaba Cloud will provide customers with more resilient and adaptable cloud environments, ultimately fostering AI innovation across various sectors and expanding the digital ecosystem.”