An advertisement promoting Alibaba’s Singles’ Day shopping festival is pictured, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai October 22, 2022. — Reuters pic

Monday, 14 Nov 2022 7:01 PM MYT

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 14 — Alibaba Cloud has doubled the amount of clean energy used at its five hyper-scale data centres across China in support of Alibaba Group’s recent 11.11 Global Shopping Festival compared to last year.

The digital technology and intelligence unit of Alibaba Group said more than 32 million kilowatt-hours of electricity that it used to support the largest global shopping festival this year came from renewable energy, up by 30 per cent on a daily basis compared to 2021.

Also thanks to its high-performance computing and innovative technology, the group saw an eight per cent year-on-year saving in computing cost per resource unit from April 1 to November 11, Alibaba Cloud said in a statement today.

Alibaba Group chief technology officer Li Cheng said that the breadth and depth of cloud technology deployment during this year’s 11.11 has once again showcased Alibaba’s best cloud and technology practices.

“(This is) through fundamental architecture like self-proprietary technology powering high-performance computing and database products (as well as) consumer-facing extended reality and live streaming technologies.

“We intend to continue applying these proven capabilities to even better serve our customers and help them to be more efficient, innovative and greener in their own digital transformation journeys,” he said in the statement.

Alibaba Cloud’s Heyuan data centre, the cloud company’s largest hyper-scale data centre in South China, now runs entirely on clean energy.

“Alibaba Cloud’s self-developed immersion cooling technology has reduced the energy consumption of the data centres, with power usage effectiveness reaching as low as 1.09 — a world-leading level,” it said.

Alibaba Cloud has also worked with Tmall to leverage the carbon management platform, Energy Expert.

“It provided online carbon footprint modelling, calculations and certifications for more than 40 brands in various sectors, including paper and pulp, food and personal care, to help them categorise low-carbon products, identify carbon emission resources and conduct informed sustainability practices to reduce carbon emissions,” it said. — Bernama