Alibaba Cloud opens first Dutch public cloud region

Alibaba Cloud has opened its first public cloud region in the Netherlands, with two data centres in Amsterdam.

The launch gives Alibaba Cloud a fourth cloud region in Europe, after Frankfurt, London and Paris, extending its local infrastructure footprint as European customers look to keep data and AI workloads within the region.

The Amsterdam region is intended to meet rising demand for cloud and AI services from businesses in the Netherlands and across Europe. Local infrastructure can reduce latency, improve resilience, and support customers that want data processed and stored in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

The new region includes products across computing, storage, containers, networking, big data, security, databases and cloud-native services. Alibaba Cloud also plans to bring a range of AI agent services to the region, including ACS Agent Sandbox, Agent Security Centre, AI Security Guardrails 2.0, Agentic SOC and STAROps.

At the same time, Alibaba Cloud introduced the latest version of Apsara Stack, its hybrid cloud platform for public-sector and enterprise AI workloads. The updated system includes more than 80 cloud and AI products, while its operations and maintenance functions have reached 92.5% accuracy, with automation at 70%.

Dr Feifei Li, Chief Technology Officer and President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said the Netherlands launch reflects demand from local customers building AI systems.

"The Netherlands is one of Europe's most vibrant digital economies, and our first region here is a direct response to the strong demand we see from local businesses building and scaling with AI. By bringing our advanced AI and cloud capabilities to Amsterdam, we are giving customers the in-region infrastructure, performance and data residency they need to innovate faster, scale securely and operate with greater efficiency in the AI era," Dr Li said.

Customer links

Alibaba Cloud also highlighted several companies using its AI models and cloud services in Europe, including a cluster of customers in the Netherlands.

JetBrains is working with Alibaba Cloud on the use of Qwen models for Junie, its AI coding assistant, across cloud and local deployments. The software company said the arrangement gives access to models while allowing developers to decide where the systems run.

"AI development is moving quickly, and developers need the freedom to choose the tools and models that work best for them. Working with Alibaba Cloud gives us an opportunity to combine JetBrains' expertise in software development and AI with Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure and AI capabilities, giving developers more choice while keeping them in control of how they build with AI," Skrygan said.

Orq.ai, a Dutch large language model platform, has integrated Qwen models into its hosted model garden through Alibaba Cloud's Model Studio. The company said the setup allows customers to use generative AI tools while maintaining EU data localisation.

"For us at Orq.ai, the value of local infrastructure is what businesses can build on it. We welcome Alibaba's investment in the Netherlands and look forward to working together to help more organisations put AI into everyday use in a reliable and scalable way," Diaz said.

Monks, headquartered in Amsterdam, is integrating Alibaba's generative AI models into Monks.Flow, its AI marketing platform. The company said the models will be used for image, video and language applications, with plans to expand their use in marketing workflows.

"AI moves fast. Our job is to turn that progress into a creative and commercial advantage for our clients, and to provide flexibility and optionality in their token usage. Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud will give our teams access to its latest image, video and language models for use in Monks.Flow, helping us bring more ambitious ideas to life and get great work into market faster," ter Haar said.

Other users cited by Alibaba Cloud included Magnific, an AI platform for creative professionals, and Amsterdam-based Idea.ai, a digital design marketplace. Both said they had integrated Alibaba's AI models into their platforms.

"We are pleased to partner with Alibaba and integrate its advanced AI models into Magnific. This collaboration strengthens our platform and gives creators more powerful tools to accelerate their work and expand their creative possibilities," Florido said.

"We are committed to making great creative tools accessible to everyone, and Alibaba Cloud's advanced AI models help us deliver that at scale in a cost-effective way. This is just the start; we're excited to deepen the collaboration across the whole creative industry," Hillenaar said.

European build-out

The Netherlands region is part of a wider expansion in Europe and sits within a broader infrastructure programme announced by Alibaba. The new site brings its global estate to 109 availability zones across 32 regions.

Alibaba has also said it plans to establish its first cloud regions in Finland and expand its data centre footprint in Germany and France over the next 12 months. The company linked the wider build-out to its previously announced USD $53 billion investment in AI and cloud infrastructure.

With the Amsterdam launch, Alibaba Cloud now has four regions in Europe and a larger local base from which to serve customers seeking computing capacity and data residency within the continent.