China’s Alibaba launches data centre in Dubai

Alibaba Cloud, a cloud computing arm of China’s Alibaba Group, said here that it launched a data centre in Dubai.

Operated by YVOLV, a joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and United Arab Emirates (UAE) company Meraas Holdings, the data centre will be the first “full-fledged public cloud” in the Middle East, Xinhua quoted a statement by Alibaba Cloud and Meraas as saying.

It will serve the “increasing demand” for mission-critical, affordable and secure cloud computing in the region, they said.

Simon Hu, president of Alibaba Cloud, said that with the data centre, global cloud network will be able to meet demands from enterprises which are going global.

Fahed Al-Hajeri, chief executive officer of YVOLV, confirmed that the cloud provider’s achievements in its home market China “can be replicated in the region”.

The project, he added, is in line with Dubai’s smart city initiative and the Gulf state’s strategic master plan “UAE vision 2021”.

The latter aims to transform the UAE, a major oil supplier, to the world’s most competitive country.