Alibaba Cloud Enhances Cloud Computing Infrastructure with Leading Processors

Hangzhou, 21 February 2017 – Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA), announced it has partnered with Intel to customize and begin the deployment of the next-generation Intel Xeon CPU (Skylake) to its data centers in order to create more powerful cloud computing infrastructure at an affordable price. This will lead to more robust computing capability as well as faster development of artificial intelligence (AI) products and services for the Alibaba Group business ecosystem as well as Alibaba Cloud's cloud computing customers.

Jeff Zhang, Chief Technology Officer for Alibaba Group and Alibaba Cloud, commented: "By partnering with Intel to deploy its latest processors to Alibaba's ecosystem, we have elevated our computing infrastructure as well as the performance of our data centers. As a result, more AI functionality can now be explored in different business scenarios including shopping, financing, logistics and the cloud. We are excited about the partnership with Intel and the unlimited future driven by cloud computing and AI."

Alibaba Cloud also announced launching the beta version of a new elastic compute service (ECS) -- instance family N5, based on Skylake. It supports Intel Advanced Vector Entensions-512 and as many as 96 vCPUs, with in-depth enhancement in virtual, internet, scheduling kernel and electricity. With advanced capability in vector calculation, single and double-precision floating number field computation, the ECS instance family N5 are the best-in-class for verticals with strong computing requirements, such as high precision coding, rendering, computational genomics and Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMO).

Alibaba Cloud also has a wide array of AI solutions including High Performance Computing (HPC), Elastic Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in September 2009, Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba Group's cloud computing arm, develops highly scalable platforms for cloud computing and data management. It provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support growing enterprises worldwide, including customers, sellers and businesses participating in Alibaba Group's online and mobile commerce ecosystem. Alibaba Cloud is a business of Alibaba Group.