Why Alibaba could be the next big cloud success story

What sets Alibaba Cloud apart from the competition? Why should a business look to work with Alibaba Cloud?

Initially developed as an infrastructure platform to support the large-scale operations for the various business units within Alibaba Group’s ecosystem, Alibaba Cloud has grown to be so much more.

Today, Alibaba Cloud is among the world’s top three IaaS providers and China’s largest provider of public cloud, with more than a million paying customers stretching across 43 availability zones and 18 economic centres.

Such growth can be attributed to the comprehensive suite of products and services we offer, ranging from networking, cloud computing and big data to AI, middleware and cloud security. Being part of the wider Alibaba Group gives us extensive sector insights and expertise, helping us to support the diverse businesses from across the world that work with Alibaba; including merchants doing business on our marketplaces, start-ups, corporations and government organisations.

This all-inclusive approach to technology, and the significant sector knowledge and insights we have as part of the world’s largest e-commerce company, is a key differentiator for Alibaba Cloud.

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Do you have any key case studies or examples of the work Alibaba Cloud does?

While Alibaba Cloud works with many of the world’s biggest brands. Perhaps the most famous is our partnership with the International Olympics Committee (IOC).

Alibaba entered a long-term partnership with the IOC to become the official cloud and e-commerce platform services partner for the Olympic Games through to 2028. During the Peyongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, the group launched Alibaba Cloud ET Sports Brain, a suite of cloud-based and AI-powered solutions that will drive the digital transformation of future Olympic Games to benefit fans, spectators, athletes, venues and organisers.

Alibaba Cloud also played a crucial role supporting Alibaba’s record-breaking 2017 11.11 Global Shopping Festival.

Our super computational engine, Apsara, ensured that all networks and systems were scaled to handle the unprecedented transaction volumes, matching buyers and sellers and facilitating a record record-breaking 325,000 orders per second during peak periods.

How is Alibaba Cloud technology helping spur on digital transformation for businesses?

At Alibaba Cloud we see ourselves as pioneers of digital transformation, having the best practice gained from our own experience in New Retail, smart manufacturing and smart city development. Right now, the organisation is at the forefront of the second wave of digital transformation.

As more and more businesses get ready for digital transformations driven by AI and big data technology, our focus is to help them become more agile, innovative and customer focused by smoothly adopting our cloud infrastructure and advanced AI solutions. For example, German car manufacturer BMW is working with our Internet-of-Things (IoT) business unit to introduce digitalized experiences and its in-car infotainment system to Chinese consumers.

Indeed, during this year’s Mobile World Congress we launched 8 new products ranging from AI and big data, infrastructure, security and private cloud solutions. This included Dataphin, an intelligent big data engine that helps users save time and cost in data analytics.

How do you secure your platforms against the wide range of security threats facing businesses today?

Alibaba Cloud is the second largest hosting company in the world and as the security provider for almost half of China’s websites it is constantly working to ensure customer data is kept safe.

From our free cloud-based security service, Anti-DDoS Basic, which protects data against Trojan attacks, to Web Application Firewall, a big data powered protection service, Alibaba Cloud has multiple security products and services to help our customers, including some of the world’s biggest brands, safely manage their data.

Alibaba Cloud has also committed to several of the highest levels of data security compliance. This includes Germany's C5 standard and the EU’s GDPR legislation for data protection and privacy. Additionally, in 2016 the organisation achieved two new overseas certifications – the MTCS and PCI-DSS – to underline an obligation detailed in the Data Protection Pact it released in 2015.

Do you have any plans to move into the UK market?

There is enormous potential in the UK for the adoption of cloud computing technologies. It is at the forefront of innovations in many areas, from retail to logistics, as well being home to some of the world’s most renowned research institutions and multinational corporations.

As such, Alibaba Cloud is committed to investing into the UK, using its technology and expertise to assist local organisations by enabling them to scale-up internationally and transform their business digitally.

Yeming Wang is General Manager of Alibaba Cloud, Europe.