Alibaba investing $1 billion in cloud business

Alibaba says it will invest $1 billion into its cloud computing business, months after announcing a push into the U.S. with the opening of a data center in Silicon Valley.

In a statement released Wednesday, Alibaba cites the surge in cloud-based revenue for Amazon, up 80% year-over-year. "Big data and cloud computing are at the heart of Alibaba Group’s strategy for the future,” said CEO Daniel Zhang in a statement.

A portion of the $1 billion will go toward expanding Aliyun, Alibaba's cloud service and the largest cloud computing platform in China. The company plans on opening data centers in the Middle East, Singapore, Japan and Europe. Aliyun already hosts five data centers in China and Hong Kong.

Earlier this year, Aliyun opened its first data center in the U.S., with the plan of selling cloud services. The move would put the e-commerce giant directly in competition with companies including Amazon and Google.

Aliyun also announced it is partnering with China's largest software vendor, Yonyou Software, on cloud services targeting the enterprise market.

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