How Alibaba and Nvidia Power Physical AI Breakthroughs
Alibaba Cloud is launching its international expansion strategy alongside strategic partnerships to accelerate AI innovation worldwide.
Announced at its annual Apsara Conference 2025, the plan includes launching new data centres in Brazil, France and the Netherlands, with further expansion into Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Dubai set to begin within the next 12 months.
This move is set to significantly boost Alibaba Cloud’s global infrastructure, enhancing its ability to meet surging enterprise demand for AI and cloud services.
Fuelling next-generation AI innovation
Alibaba Cloud currently operates 91 availability zones across 29 regions and is expanding this footprint to support the growing global appetite for AI-driven business transformation.
Dr Feifei Li, President of International Business and SVP of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, says: “AI is revolutionising not only technology, but also the very foundation of how enterprises deliver business value and drive growth.
“Our strategic expansion of global infrastructure is designed to cater for the accelerating demand from forward-thinking customers.
“Alibaba Cloud stands at the forefront of AI innovation, co-evolving with our customers with full stack AI and cloud solutions that support businesses anytime and anywhere.
“We are here to help partners and customers to design, launch and scale groundbreaking AI agents and applications, fuelling the next generation of digital innovation and unlocking unprecedented value in the global marketplace.”
Supporting this growth, Alibaba Cloud is also establishing new regional service centres in Indonesia and Germany, offering round-the-clock, multi-language customer support to ensure seamless service delivery.
The company has also launched the AI Catalyst Program to foster a vibrant technology ecosystem by offering selected global AI firms expert guidance, access to Alibaba's AI tools, and substantial cloud credits and tokens for innovation.
Nvidia partnership drives physical AI advances
Alibaba Cloud has deepened its AI capabilities through a collaboration with Nvidia, integrating the full suite of Nvidia’s Physical AI software stack into its Platform for AI (PAI).
This integration provides developers with a cloud-native environment to accelerate breakthroughs in humanoid robotics and Physical AI solutions.
The partnership marks a significant step in Alibaba Cloud's commitment to pioneering Physical AI – a domain focused on AI systems that interact with the physical world, such as robots and autonomous vehicles.
This collaboration equips developers with comprehensive tools and the agility to rapidly innovate in robotics and next-level AI applications.
AI in action
Alibaba Cloud’s AI technology is driving transformation across a variety of industries around the world.
In China, AstraZeneca leverages Alibaba Cloud’s LLM Qwen and Model Studio to develop an advanced adverse event reporting tool that enhances drug safety reviews with 95% accuracy and triples operational efficiency.
Xin Zhong, Head of Commercial IT at AstraZeneca China, says: “Working closely with Alibaba Cloud, we managed to harness the benefits of the Qwen LLM and Model Studio: Exclusive, which vastly improved the efficiency of generating adverse event reports from huge amounts of medical literature.
“We’re proud that we have pioneered this innovation in the industry. We expect to explore more AI-based innovations with Alibaba Cloud.”
Other partners include Shiseido China, which uses Alibaba Cloud’s AI-driven Cloud Threat Detection and Response (CTDR) platform to safeguard its digital infrastructure with real-time security analytics and expert threat hunting, enabling secure digital transformation growth.
“Security is not just a technical requirement but a strategic imperative for our growth in China,” says Jerry LIN, CITO of Shiseido China & Travel Retail at Shiseido China.
“Partnering with Alibaba Cloud gives us the confidence to scale our digital transformation securely. “Its AI-driven threat detection and expert services allow us to focus on delivering exceptional beauty experiences to our customers, knowing our cloud infrastructure is protected by advanced security measures in the country.”
Marketing and AI startups like GladCube and FLUX in Japan are utilising Alibaba Cloud’s AI models and infrastructure for innovative content creation, financial sector AI models and next-generation AI solutions.
Hiroki Kaneshima, President & CEO of GladCube, says: “We have long pursued the dual goals of creative excellence and operational efficiency in content development by harnessing generative AI.
“Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud represents a major leap forward and we are confident it will revolutionise creative content production and reshape the future of digital marketing in Japan.”
Turbo AI is working closely with Alibaba Cloud by leveraging its secure and resilient cloud infrastructure to deliver integrated AI solutions tailored to regional clients.
The collaboration spans the entire AI lifecycle, from research and development of AI models to deployment and real-world application.
Turbo AI uses Alibaba Cloud’s intelligent resource scheduling and elastic computing capabilities to dynamically configure and scale computing resources.
“By leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s resilient, secure cloud infrastructure and intelligent resource scheduling, Turbo AI achieves dynamic configuration and elastic scaling of computing resources,” says Yuan LU, Big Data Head of Turbo AI.
“This empowers us to significantly enhance operational efficiency and optimise our clients’ cost performance of AI workloads.”
