The Chinese tech giant is rapidly building AI infrastructure in emerging markets amid an intensifying US-China tech rivalry
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListenAnn Caoin ShanghaiPublished: 9:00pm, 27 Aug 2026Alibaba Group Holding has launched its first data centres in South America, as the Chinese technology giant ramps up its artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout in emerging markets amid an intensifying US-China AI rivalry.
The Hangzhou-based company announced on Thursday that its new Brazilian venture would operate two data centres offering local enterprises secure cloud infrastructure and a suite of “agentic AI services”.
“Brazil is one of the world’s most dynamic digital economies and a new market central to Alibaba Cloud’s expansion in Latin America,” said Allen Guo, Alibaba Cloud’s general manager for the Latin America region and vice-president of international business.
The move underscores Alibaba’s rapid AI infrastructure buildout outside mainland China, as the firm seeks new growth markets amid a fierce US-China AI race. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
With the new local infrastructure and its growing partner ecosystem, Alibaba Cloud aimed to power Brazilian enterprises’ AI capabilities and connect them to the company’s global network, Guo added.
The venture gives enterprises, start-ups, developers and public institutions in Brazil direct access to a full portfolio of cloud services running on local infrastructure, engineered for the low latency, resilience and data governance that mission-critical workloads require, according to the company.
