Incorporated in China in 2009, Alibaba Cloud set up its data centre here in Malaysia at the end of October 2017 to meet the surging demand for scalable and cost-effective cloud computing services among SMEs in the country and within Southeast Asia.

"While the e-hub was just a first step, Alibaba and Malaysia can expect further cooperation in the areas of logistics, online finance as well as cloud computing," says Selina Yuan, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International in an interview with The Edge.

Later, in July 2018, the provider also set up its first cloud-based Anti-DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Scrubbing Centre in Malaysia, which provides customers with new levels of protection against large-scale cyberattacks.

Alibaba Cloud has one of the largest infrastructure networks in the Asia Pacific region, with operations in 56 availability zones across 19 regions globally.

It has more than 70 security and compliance accreditations worldwide. The comprehensive set of compliance certifications allow local financial customers as well as many other regulated industries to innovate in the cloud, and accelerate their way towards digital transformation.

Rise of cloud computing and data intelligence

"Indeed, before the existence of cloud computing, one would have to run applications or programmes only from physical computers or servers," says Yuan.

"But now, cloud computing allows one to access them through the internet wherever and whenever, with any sort of device, which results in the rising demand for cloud computing."

In Malaysia, like any other developing country, has been seeing a rise in adopting cloud computing in their businesses, but it has been relatively slow. In 2018, International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasted that the cloud-related services market in Malaysia will have a compounded annual growth rate of 23.8% over the next five years.

In January 2019, Alibaba Cloud announced a collaboration with Sena Traffic Systems - Malaysia's leading smart traffic system controller - to build a smart traffic management system in Malaysia. Utilising cloud empowered smart technologies, the system will digitally transform the traffic management infrastructure in the city with a potential to reduce the average travel time by 12%.

Empowering Malaysian companies is priority

"After two years in Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud aspires to be an enabler and is ready to provide the platform and cloud computing power which would enable companies to do more scalable and elastic data analysis with the immense amount of data available in the country," Yuan says.

Among many of Alibaba Cloud's customers and partners in Malaysia are AirAsia, TNG Digital, Atilze Digital, Sena Traffic Systems, Revenue Monster, and Ground Team Red.

AirAsia uses Alibaba Cloud's CDN network in China to enable improvements in the latency and Round-Trip Time (RTT) of AirAsia's website. At the same time, AirAsia and Alibaba Cloud security teams work together to block illicit traffic, thanks to an extensive database of known hackers and patterns

AirAsia Group chief information executive Declan Hogan said by implementing Alibaba Cloud's content delivery network (CDN) and Web Application Firewall (WAF) services and working with Alibaba Cloud's security professionals, AirAsia identified the bots, which in some instances accounted for up to 90% of the traffic. Now, Alibaba Cloud provides AirAsia with weekly security reports and regular updates.

Meanwhile, for TNG Digital, Malaysia's premier e-Wallet service provider, it's partnership with Alibaba Cloud enables the company to grow in terms of scale, and working towards protecting and securing its data as well as using the data to improve the performance of the e-Wallet.

Former TNG Digital CEO said Alibaba Cloud was uniquely experienced in China with an infrastructure that has scaled millions of transactions. He noted that this was key for TNG Digital because Touch 'n Go has and will always be processing millions of transactions.

He also highlighted that TNG Digital wanted to make sure that all its users would have a great experience, adding that Alibaba Cloud was one of the best to learn from.

Looking ahead, the future roadmap for TNG Digital would be to leverage on Alibaba Cloud's data technology to analyse customer behaviour to facilitate a smarter digital wallet solution with the aim of enhancing customer experiences.

Another example would be the recent collaboration between Alibaba Cloud and Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd to enhance its usage of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to expedite financial inclusion.

"Notably, this was Alibaba's first collaboration with the financial sector in Malaysia to encourage better access to the technology and tackle challenges in security and compliance," says Alibaba's Yuan.

"This collaboration will not only allow us to offer better products and services but also tailor-made financial services that suit customers' growth aspirations," says Bank Muamalat chief technology officer Abdul Razak Mohamed Ismail.

With its best practices accumulated in the past two decades from Alibaba's ecosystem, Alibaba Cloud is here to further empower Malaysia business partners to transform the way they market, sell, operate and succeed in the digital era.

"Alibaba prioritises empowering Malaysia in its journey into becoming an innovative and dynamic nation and as also one that lives and breathes technology and contributes to the future of science and technology," Yuan says.

Alibaba's first cloud summit in Malaysia

In July, Alibaba Cloud showcased its leading-edge solutions to Malaysian enterprises for accelerating their digital transformation at the first cloud summit held by the company in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The summit drew executives representing Malaysia's top 100 companies, industry leaders, and tech experts to discuss the technologies and solutions innovated by Alibaba Cloud.

Among many of the distinguished guests attending the summit were Surina Shukri, CEO of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, Datuk Mohd Redza Shah Abdul Wahid, CEO of Bank Muamalat Malaysia, Muzzaffar Othman, CTO of Permodalan Nasional Bhd, Calvin Chee, VP of Enterprise Application Development & Integration, Genting Malaysia Bhd, Syahrunizam, Patrick Khoo, CIO of Averis Sdn Bhd, Kanags Surendran, head of transforming customer journeys for CIMB and Alibaba's Yuan.

The Alibaba Cloud Summit is a series of events held in major cities around the globe, with world-class keynotes and insightful views on technology innovation.