阿里設硅谷數據中心 拓展雲服務

SAN FRANCISCO — China’s largest Internet company, Alibaba, is adding to its modest presence in Silicon Valley, but not in the way many have expected.

舊金山——中國最大的互聯網公司阿里巴巴準備增加它在硅谷有限的存在感，但其方式並不像許多人預期的那樣。

In an announcement on Wednesday, the Chinese e-commerce giant said it planned to open its first data center outside of China in Silicon Valley. Instead of supporting the company’s hugely popular e-commerce sites, the center will help Alibaba spread a less well-known but growing side of its business: cloud services for businesses.

這家中國電商巨頭週三發表聲明稱，它計劃在硅谷開設它在中國以外的首家數據中心。這座中心不是爲了給阿里巴巴極受歡迎的電商網站提供支持，而是將幫助它擴展不那麼有名但卻在一直增長的業務領域：企業雲服務。

Similar to the services offered by Amazon that lease computing power to businesses, Alibaba has been slowly wooing clients in China to use its services. Many vendors who sell on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites use the services, but it has been slowly adding larger clients.

與亞馬遜向企業出租計算能力的服務相似，阿里巴巴一直在慢慢拉攏中國客戶，希望他們能使用自己的服務。阿里巴巴電商網站上的許多賣家會使用這些服務，但大客戶的增長較爲緩慢。

The company said the new data center would first cater to Chinese businesses operating in China, but in the second half of the year do more to aim at foreign clients. The company did not specify when the center would open, how much it was investing in the center, or how large it would be.

阿里巴巴表示，這座新數據中心將首先滿足在中國運營的中國企業的需求，但他們下半年將採取更多措施來吸引外國客戶。聲明中並未說明這個中心的開放時間、投資金額和規模大小。

Using the name Aliyun to refer to the company’s cloud operations, Ethan Sicheng Yu, a vice president, said: “Aliyun hopes to meet the needs of Chinese enterprises in the United States, and the ultimate objective of Aliyun is to bring cost-efficient and cutting-edge cloud computing services to benefit more clients outside China to boost their business development.”

談到公司的這種名爲“阿里雲”的服務時，阿里巴巴副總裁喻思成表示，“阿里雲希望能夠滿足在美中國企業的需求，阿里雲的最終目標是帶來合算而先進的雲計算服務，使更多海外客戶受益，推動他們的業務發展。”

Though Alibaba has a significant share of the market selling computing services to businesses in China, it’s an open question whether the company can win over more foreign clients. A Chinese company first, it will have to put into place English-speaking staff members to support and sell to the businesses, while also making its software easy to use in other languages.

雖然阿里巴巴在中國的計算服務市場佔據重要份額，但該公司能否吸引更多外國客戶還很難說。它首先是一家中國公司，需要安排會講英語的員工來支持工作並說服其他企業使用其產品，同時還要使其軟件在其他語言中可以簡便操作。

Still, with a labor force primarily in China, the company may be able to compete on cost. It will also no doubt get a boost from the growing number of Chinese companies that are seeking to invest and advertise in the United States.

不過，由於勞動力主要在中國，阿里巴巴或許可以在成本上具有競爭力。此外，越來越多的中國企業正尋求在美國投資和打廣告，阿里巴巴無疑會從中受益。