Alibaba Cloud launches its inaugural data centers in France.

      TL;DR Alibaba Cloud has launched its first data centres in France, establishing two availability zones in Paris as its third European base. This expansion aligns with the EU’s new Cloud and AI Development Act, which implements sovereignty regulations potentially affecting non-EU providers’ access to public-sector contracts.

      On Wednesday, Alibaba Cloud opened its first data centres in France, unveiling two availability zones in Paris as part of a strategic entry into a European market that is reevaluating its reliance on foreign cloud providers. These facilities make France Alibaba Cloud’s third European hub, following its operations in Germany since 2016 and in Britain. “The expansion of our cloud infrastructure into France reinforces our ongoing commitment to empowering European businesses with sovereign, secure, and intelligent solutions,” stated Feifei Li, Alibaba Cloud’s chief technology officer and president of international business. The company indicated plans to introduce agentic AI services throughout Europe in the latter half of the year.

      The timing is intentional. The European Commission released its tech sovereignty package on June 3, consisting of measures designed to lessen the EU’s reliance on American and Asian technologies in areas such as semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. The core of this package, the Cloud and AI Development Act, highlighted “limited data centre capacity” as a major challenge to Europe’s ability to leverage digital transformation. It also established a four-tier cloud sovereignty framework that requires public entities to evaluate their infrastructure's dependence on non-EU companies.

      This framework could pose challenges for Alibaba, particularly as France pushes aggressively for digital sovereignty. The highest tiers in the new EU classification necessitate EU ownership and operational independence, conditions that may be difficult for a Chinese company to satisfy for government contracts.

      Alibaba Cloud, although ranking fourth globally by revenue among cloud providers, remains a minor player in Europe. According to Synergy Research Group, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud together hold about 70% of the region’s cloud infrastructure revenue, while all European providers collectively account for only approximately 15%.

      To enhance its visibility, Alibaba has been forming partnerships. In May, it inked a six-year agreement with UEFA to serve as the official AI, cloud computing, and e-commerce partner for the Champions League and Euro 2028. The broader expansion was revealed by CEO Eddie Wu at Alibaba’s Apsara Conference in Hangzhou last September, during which he announced the company’s largest ever overseas investment in AI infrastructure. This initiative includes new cloud regions in Brazil, France, and the Netherlands, along with capacity increases in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Dubai.

      Alibaba’s Cloud Intelligence Group reported a 38% revenue growth in the first quarter of 2026, reaching 41.6 billion yuan ($6.15 billion). AI-related products represented about 30% of external cloud revenue, following 11 straight quarters of triple-digit growth in this sector. The company has pledged at least 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) towards AI and cloud infrastructure over three years, part of a broader trend of Chinese AI infrastructure investments that it claims surpasses its total cloud spending over the past decade. The impact of this investment on garnering a significant European market share will depend on the outcome of the EU’s sovereignty rules and whether companies wary of technology dependencies decide to entrust their data to a provider based in Hangzhou.