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Alibaba Cloud cuts prices again, this time for international customers as AI generates surging demand

  • Alibaba is cutting prices by as much as 59 per cent for international users of its compute, storage, network, database and big data products
  • Competition has been heating up in the compute space amid intense demand for AI services, but Alibaba lags behind rivals like Amazon and Google globally

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Alibaba Cloud is cutting prices for international customers using servers in China as it seeks to compete with global tech giants amid surging AI-driven demand for compute services. Photo: Reuters
Ann Caoin Shanghai
Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud computing unit has slashed prices for international customers by up to 59 per cent, as the tech giant fights to woo users amid a global race for computing resources driven by rapid artificial intelligence (AI) development.
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The international cloud business of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, is facing headwinds from geopolitical tensions and a lack of access to advanced chips. Company chairman Joe Tsai said in a recent interview that US restrictions on the exports of advanced chips from Nvidia “affected our cloud business and our ability to provide high-end computing services to customers”.

In the company’s latest round of price cuts, the cloud service provider’s international customers will see an average reduction of 23 per cent across five categories of core public cloud products using Alibaba’s data centres out of mainland China: compute, storage, network, database and big data products. The price reductions will take immediate effect, the company announced at its Spring Launch event on Monday.

The latest cuts, which follow price cuts for domestic customers in February, reflect the company’s efforts to attract more customers as the adoption of AI picks up steam across a multitude of industries.
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In February, Alibaba Cloud announced price reductions as high as 55 per cent for more than 100 core products for mainland China customers, the largest discount offering in the company’s history.

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