Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group announced the addition of three more hyper-scale data centers to its portfolio in China. With this expansion, the company is bringing its total number of facilities in the area to five. Also, Alibaba Cloud is planning to reach at least 10 more data centers in the coming years. The new data centers are in Hangzhou, Nantong (in the Jiangsu Province), and Ulanqab (in Inner Mongolia).
Equipped with Alibaba Cloud’s self-developed technologies
According to the announcement, the three new facilities have deployed Alibaba Cloud’s self-developed technologies like the X-dragon architecture, the Hanguang 800 AI inference chip, and the Apsara Distributed Operating System. These technologies will deliver ‘hyper-scale computing as well as robust and scalable application and intelligent services’.
In addition to this, the Hangzhou data center uses server clusters that are submerged in liquid coolant. The coolant keeps IT hardware chilled and reduces energy consumption by more than 70%. In the Nantong data center, Alibaba Cloud leverages its uninterruptible power supply (UPS) solution to improve electricity usage efficiency. It also uses intelligent robots to automate monitoring and maintenance tasks. The Ulanqab data center will leverage the free-air cooling system – particularly in winter where temperatures can drop to -22 degrees Celsius.
Alibaba Cloud is planning to invest 200 billion yuan (US$28 billion) in the next three years to help build the next-generation cloud infrastructure to support global clients with their accelerated digital transformation needs.