Alibaba Group Holding is accelerating its data center expansion across Europe and the Middle East to power its 20-gigawatt global infrastructure buildout, amid escalating competition between China and the U.S. in AI chips and models, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the South China Morning Post.

Speaking on Wednesday at the company’s flagship Apsara conference in Hangzhou, China, Li Feifei, Chief Technology Officer and President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, announced that the cloud unit will establish its first cloud regions in Turkey, Finland, and the Netherlands over the next 12 months. The Dutch facility is scheduled to open first in October.

As part of the broader push to bolster its global cloud and AI services capabilities, Alibaba is also planning additional data center builds across Malaysia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Hong Kong.The buildout will broaden Alibaba Cloud’s global network beyond its current 107 availability zones across 31 regions, the report said.

"We are expanding our global cloud footprint to bring computing resources closer to customers and partners," said Li, noting that enterprise clients are rapidly shifting AI from experimental stages into real-world deployment.

Alongside its infrastructure and software offerings, Alibaba Cloud announced international technology partnerships with Panasonic Digital Shanghai, Unity China, Indonesian logistics group Lion Parcel, Malaysia’s Loomi Entertainment, and business software provider Shake.

The international expansion comes as Alibaba’s AI and cloud segment shows strong momentum. Combined revenue from AI and Cloud Computing Services rose 45% Y/Y to 48.4B yuan for the quarter ended June 30, while annual recurring revenue from model and application services reached 20B yuan.