Alibaba Cloud to Shut Down Australia and India Data Centres

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Key Takeaways

  • Alibaba to shut down its operations in Sydney and Mumbai.
  • A brief statement confirmed the closures and a pivot to existing centers in Singapore and Mexico.
  • Alibaba did not explain the key market decisions.

Alibaba has confirmed the closure of its cloud data centers in Australia and India, with resources to be diverted elsewhere. 

Following the internal dialogue, the company has announced it will be migrating its services to existing locations in Mexico and Singapore, which will directly benefit from the change. The shutdown in Australia will surprise some as the Chinese e-commerce giant had previously indicated its operations there would not be impacted. 

The company stated:

“As part of Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure strategy update, following careful assessment, we have decided to cease operations at our data centers in Australia and India while enhancing our investment in Southeast Asia and Mexico.”

Once the changes have been implemented, the data stored on the Australian and Indian bases will no longer be accessible. Alibaba encourages users to move to alternative locations such as Singapore. 

Timeline for closure in Australia and India

Both sites will be closed down, but not simultaneously. Alibaba’s Mumbai data center will cease to provide services after 24:00 (UTC+5:30) on July 15, but Sydney will remain operational until 24:00 (UTC+10) on September 30. 

No further details or rationale was given on the significant decision to pull out of those markets. Still, in the case of Australia, the existing presence of providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and OVH creates a crowded, competitive playing field.  

In May this year, Alibaba stated its intention to expand its data center provisions into “key markets” such as Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea over the next three years as part of “our commitment to expanding our AI infrastructure and enhancing our cloud capacities worldwide.”