Alibaba’s data cloud to help SMEs

BEIJING: Malaysia has been chosen as Alibaba Cloud’s South-East Asian data centre under Jack Ma’s plan to help the country develop its digital economy, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

And Cyberjaya is one of the locations being considered for the data centre.

“(During my meeting with Alibaba Group executive chairman Jack Ma), it has been confirmed that the Alibaba Cloud will build its platform for big data for the South-East Asia region in Malaysia,” Najib told a press conference here yesterday.

Najib is in China on the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which will be held tomorrow and Monday.

Earlier yesterday, Najib made a stopover at Hangzhou to visit Alibaba headquarters. He also held a meeting with its founder Ma, who was appointed adviser to Malaysia’s digital economy last year.

In a separate statement, Alibaba Cloud – the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group – announced it will establish a data centre later this year to provide enterprises in Malay­sia and the region with powerful, scalable and cost-effective cloud capabilities to support their global expansion.

The planned data centre, set to become the first global public cloud platform in Malaysia, will add to Alibaba Cloud’s data centres in 14 lo­­cations worldwide, covering main­­land China, Hong Kong, Singa­pore, Japan, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

Alibaba Cloud president Simon Hu said in the statement that the data centre was aimed at helping Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) succeed in the digital age through technology such as big data and the Internet of Things.

Business nexus: Ma giving Najib a tour of Alibaba headquarters as part of the premier’s visit to China. — Bernama

Najib told reporters this would be the continuation of the partnership between Malaysia and Alibaba Group.

He and Ma jointly launched Malaysia’s Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) in Kuala Lumpur in March.

In Hangzhou, Najib also witness­ed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) among three parties to connect China (Hangzhou) Comprehensive E-Commerce Pilot Zone with Malaysia’s DFTZ, which will facilitate global trade for SMEs around the world.

The MoU was signed between the Malaysian Government – represented by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation – and Hangzhou Muni­cipal Government as well as Alibaba Company Limited.

The MoU seeks to enable the building of infrastructure for seamless cross-border e-commerce trade between Malaysia and China.

The three parties agree to work together to explore potential strategic collaborations.

Najib said the e-fulfilment centre planned in March in Kuala Lumpur is scheduled to be launched in October.

And for a start, 1,500 Malaysian companies will be selected as the pioneer group to penetrate into the vast China market.

He added that Ma has been invited to attend the launch.