SHANGHAI - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said it will invest US$28 billion in its cloud computing infrastructure over three years due to skyrocketing demand in China amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
As reported by Reuters, the company will allocate the funds for semiconductor and operating system development and data centre infrastructure.
According to Alibaba Cloud Intelligence President Jeff Zhang, the company hopes to “speed up the recovery process” of businesses in China as they struggle to cushion the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, revenue from Alibaba’s cloud division grew 62% to over US$1.5 billion with the division controlling a 46.4% market share of China’s cloud industry. In the first quarter this year, Alibaba assisted the Hangzhou city government in developing a digital monitoring system that rates a person’s exposure to the coronavirus, which was later launched nationwide. (MS)