Beijing - Alibaba , one of the leading symbols of China's global and technological advancement, is increasing its connection with Brazil through Alibaba Cloud.
In the expansion of the Chinese giant's cloud division, which has been boosted by artificial intelligence (AI) to fully compete with American companies AWS , Microsoft , and Google, Brazil is one of the key stops.
Alibaba plans to officially launch its public cloud offering in the Brazilian market in August, starting with the operation of its first data center, located in São Paulo.
Another figure behind the unit's arrival in Brazil gives a measure of the company's appetite in this race. The project is part of a global investment plan of 380 billion yuan (equivalent to US$55 billion) in the development of cloud and AI infrastructure over the next three years.
Considering only data centers, the amount allocated for this expansion is over US$4 billion, which also includes the launch of operations in markets such as the Netherlands, France, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia.
In Latin America, the first center was inaugurated in Mexico in 2025. And, after reinforcing this equation with the São Paulo unit, Alibaba is already studying a second data center in Brazil, although the location is yet to be defined, according to sources close to the company.
The company already has a clear strategy in place to advance against its American rivals in Brazil and these new markets. This will begin with an aggressive pricing strategy, promising to offer products up to 30% more affordable than competitors like AWS.
“We have no biases,” said an executive, who asked to remain anonymous, when questioned by NeoFeed about the possibility of his company sitting down to hear Alibaba’s public cloud proposal.
NeoFeed visited Alibaba with a Brazilian delegation of over 30 entrepreneurs and executives, most of them from Rio Grande do Sul, as part of the so-called "China Mission," a business exchange trip promoted by the Caldeira Institute in partnership with Investe RS.
Aside from accepting or rejecting this offer, he added that Alibaba's arrival as another option for Brazilian customers should, at the very least, influence the prices charged by the competition, which, in some cases, has inflated those costs.
Alibaba's arguments, however, are not limited to customer wallets. Another point to be addressed is the concept of "multicloud," in which many companies necessarily need to have both a "Western cloud" and an "Eastern cloud."
According to company sources, this argument would apply to companies that are expanding their businesses globally, in a strategy that includes China among other countries. At the same time, it would also be valid for Chinese companies, which are increasingly willing to enter other markets abroad.
Alibaba also believes that the ability to connect these customers with other areas of its operation – such as logistics – is another factor working in its favor. As is the integration of a portfolio of AI models, applications, and services into this offering.
On this last point, the company has been developing, for example, its own Learning Language Models (LLMs), unlike rivals such as AWS and Microsoft, which rely on LLMs from partners like Anthropic and OpenAI.
Recent data from Synergy Research shows what's at stake on this front. According to the consultancy, this market moved US$129 billion globally between January and March 2026, a 35% year-on-year increase and the ninth consecutive quarter of growth.
In the division of this pie, AWS remains on top, with a 28% share, followed by Microsoft with 21%, and Google with 14%. With a 4% share, Alibaba, in turn, shares fourth place with Oracle, also American.
Like its rivals, Alibaba has benefited from the growing demand from companies for artificial intelligence. But, in line with its peers, it has also been accounting for the impacts of high investments in building the infrastructure needed to keep up with this race.
In its last fiscal year, which ended on March 31, the company reported a net profit of 105.9 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion), a 19% decrease from the 129.4 billion yuan recorded in the previous year.
However, when releasing the financial results two weeks ago, Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba, preferred to highlight other figures related to the fourth fiscal quarter.
"The Cloud Intelligence Group's external revenue growth accelerated to 40%, with AI-related products accounting for 30% of that revenue," the executive stated in a report on the financial results.
Alibaba's shares were down 1.12% around 3 p.m. (local time) on the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the company at US$311.8 billion. Year-to-date, the shares have depreciated by 11.3%.
