It has been emphasized that developing nations should focus on investing in national cloud systems to enhance data protection and maintain authority over their digital frameworks.
During his speech at a workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Media in Developing Countries held in China, Rex Chen, who leads the Public Sector division for Alibaba Group International, emphasized the significance of customizing cloud strategies according to each nation’s specific requirements regarding data sovereignty.
Chen remarked during the delegation’s visit to Alibaba Group’s headquarters in Hangzhou, “This presents an excellent chance and the appropriate moment for nations to put money into sovereign cloud solutions.” He added that these technologies enable both governmental bodies and organizations to retain complete authority over their information and technical foundations.
Chen clarified that sovereign clouds differ from conventional cloud services because they provide complete operational control to the client—usually a government entity or state-run telecommunications company—whereas Alibaba Cloud merely provides the technological support.
In sovereign cloud solutions, our team does not interact with the data centers at all. The entire operation is managed by the client to maintain top-level security,” he stated. “We stand alone as the sole provider of this approach—many competitors typically prefer to manage the data themselves.
Chen cited Alibaba Cloud’s partnership with BCX Telecom in South Africa as a successful case, where Alibaba provided the technology while BCX managed operations independently. The approach, he said, is currently in use across more than 10 countries in collaboration with national telecoms.
He recognized the significant expenses involved in establishing and sustaining data centers, urging for robust local collaborations and well-defined digitalization plans to guarantee their longevity.
“Cloud technology is just the beginning. Countries need a long-term vision, and we’re here to support them in building and implementing high-level digital projects,” he added.
Launched in 2009, Alibaba Cloud stands as the biggest cloud service provider in China and dominates the market in the Asia-Pacific region, as reported by Gartner. The company manages 87 data centers spread over 29 geographical areas worldwide.
Chen also pointed out how Alibaba’s increasing application of artificial intelligence, spanning from model training through deployment, has boosted operational efficiency and facilitated data-driven decision-making.
He highlighted new developments like Qwen2.5-VL, an artificial intelligence model designed for both visuals and language that can understand spoken and visual inputs, along with the AI-driven Quark application, which has surpassed 200 million users in China.
In July 2023, Alibaba Cloud achieved a milestone by facilitating remote video production for the forthcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games, signifying the first instance where cloud technology took over from satellites as the main conduit for broadcasting.
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