Alibaba Cloud to invest $28B to keep up with impact of COVID-19 pandemic

With more usage due to the coronavirus pandemic, Alibaba Cloud announced its investing $28 billion in its infrastructure. Alibaba Cloud will spend that capex over the next three years as it builds out new data centers and develops new technologies related to operating systems, servers and chips.

Alibaba Cloud is also using the capex to beef up its cloud capabilities, which have been stretched thin by increased usage during the COVID-19 crisis.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has posed additional stress on the overall economy across sectors, but it also steers us to put more focus on the digital economy," said Jeff Zhang, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, in a statement.  “By increasing our investment on cloud infrastructure and fundamental technologies, we hope to continue providing world-class, trusted computing resources to help businesses speed up the recovery process.”

Alibaba Cloud reigns supreme in China but trails Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in the cloud sector, according to Synergy Research Group. Alibaba's primary competitors in China are Tencent, JD.com and Baidu.

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