The joint venture's new company, the SB Cloud Corporation, will open a new data center in Japan to deliver Alibaba Cloud technology and services to the Tokyo-headquartered SoftBank's corporate customers.
“We are proud that Alibaba Cloud can leverage its cloud computing expertise in the joint venture with SoftBank," said Sicheng Yu, vice president of Alibaba Cloud, in a statement. "We look forward to helping more Japanese companies grow their business with our secure, scalable and innovative cloud computing services.”
Demand for cloud computing services is growing in Japan, the companies said. SB Cloud will offer data storage and processing services, enterprise-level middleware and cloud security services.
"I believe the (joint venture) team can develop the most advanced cloud platform for Japanese customers, as well as for multinational customers who want to use the resources we have available in Japan," said Eric Gan, SB Cloud CEO and SoftBank executive vice president.
The two companies already have a working relationship, as SoftBank owns a 32% stake in Alibaba (BABA). And in June 2015, Alibaba and Foxconn Technology, the Taiwanese company that assembles Apple iPhones, joined SoftBank in a joint venture to sell SoftBank's robot Pepper internationally.
USA Today