It's Google v/s Alibaba in the Cloud Computing Gameplay in the Asia Pacific While the Chinese tech giant Alibaba will be launching its data centers in Singapore and Japan, Google already counts the likes of AirAsia, Go-Jek, Mahindra and Mizuho Bank as clients
By Komal Nathani •
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As the competition intensifies in the cloud computing space of the Asia Pacific region, two major giants Google and Alibaba are giving each other a tough battle in the market. With the latest releases of Google in the Google Cloud Summit in Singapore, the company announced its plans of expanding the cloud footprint in Asia Pacific region and globally. While the tech company Google has disclosed its plans for expansion in the APAC region, Chinese firm Alibaba had announced its entry into the Southeast Asian market in August too.
Competitive Cloud in APAC
The already crowded cloud market has a stellar line of players operating in the segment, which includes Amazon's AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle and Alibaba. A huge number of Chinese players like Huawei and Tencent are expanding their reach in the Asia Pacific cloud market.
Not just the big companies but the growing dominance in the market has driven the telecom companies to go beyond the traditional technologies like SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS suggests the report by Reports Web.
The market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC) says that China is the biggest spender in Asia Pacific's cloud market. Spending on public cloud services in the Asia Pacific region – excluding Japan – will hit $15 billion in 2018, representing an increase of 35% over the year before, according to IDC.
Google v/s Alibaba
Google has its cloud operations in five regions in the Asia Pacific market, which include Singapore, Mumbai and Sydney. Since its first launch in the APAC region 18 months ago, the tech company has gained ground in other parts of Asia Pacific region as well. The cloud supplier claims substantial growth in Asia-Pacific and is upping the ante on partnerships and infrastructure investments across the region.
While the Chinese tech giant Alibaba will be launching its data centers in Singapore and Japan, Google already counts the likes of AirAsia, Go-Jek, Mahindra and Mizuho Bank as clients. Alibaba already operates five data centers in China and Hong Kong. The company has partnered with giants like Singtel, Intel, Equinix and Towngas for its expansion in cloud space.
Google Cloud's APAC managing director, Richard Harshman, said the company would "double down" on partnerships with regional systems integrators and enterprise technology companies. "We're really seeing that taking shape in India where we have than 4,000 technology partners," he said at the Google Cloud Summit in Singapore.
Google is also ramping up its infrastructure investments in the region. By the end of 2018, Harshman said, enterprises would have six Google Cloud regions across APAC, including Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, Sydney, Mumbai, as well as Hong Kong in the later part of the year.
