Alibaba Cloud will extend its reach across the United States and globally via an interconnection deal with Equinix.

The cloud and data center interconnect giants today announced that Equinix will extend access to Alibaba Cloud in 19 global metros including nine in the U.S. Additionally, Alibaba Cloud’s API will integrate with Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric. The SDN-based platform allows enterprises to establish private connections between their network and Alibaba Cloud and maintain private clouds in Equinix data centers.

China-based Alibaba is already the no. 4 public cloud infrastructure provider globally, and its growth continues to outpace the overall cloud market. And while it’s the biggest cloud provider in the Asia-Pacific region, it has had a tougher time winning market share from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure in the U.S. and Europe.

Even before the Equinix partnership, Alibaba had 12 regions outside of mainland China, including two in the U.S. (one in San Jose, California and one in Ashburn, Virginia) and six that are part of Equinix’s offering: Dubai, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. But this will broaden its footprint and give Alibaba Cloud access to Equinix’s 9,700 customers, including 1,800 network providers and more than 2,900 cloud and IT service providers globally.

The metros included in today’s announcement are:

  • Nine U.S. metros: Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Los Angeles; Miami; New York; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; and Silicon Valley, California.
  • Five Asia-Pacific metros: Hong Kong; Singapore; Sydney; Tokyo; and Jakarta, Indonesia.
  • Three Europe, Middle East, and Africa metros: London; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Frankfurt, Germany.
Alibaba’s Expansion Plans

The Equinix partnership comes less than three months after Alibaba announced plans to invest $28 billion in its cloud platform during the next three years. And last month parent company Alibaba Group pledged to hire 5,000 people for its Alibaba Cloud operations during the next 10 months.

Alibaba reported a 62% year-over-year increase in cloud revenues during the final quarter of 2019, generating more than $1.5 billion in revenue and roughly 7% of its total earnings during the quarter.