LEAP 2024, the Saudi Arabian tech extravaganza, witnessed a groundbreaking announcement on March 6, 2024 – Tencent Cloud made its debut at the main venue and officially announced its entry into the Saudi market, injecting fresh vitality into the cloud service market in the Middle East.
However, in the overseas layout of Chinese cloud computing giants, the absence of Baidu Cloud, compared to Huawei Cloud and Alibaba Cloud, which have already entered the Saudi market, is particularly noteworthy.
In the midst of the surging tide of AI technology, Baidu Cloud, as one of the leading domestic cloud service providers, has yet to make a move in the Saudi market, raising questions: Where is Baidu Cloud? Faced with competition and challenges in the international market, how will it respond and seize the opportunities brought by the AI boom?
1. Tencent Cloud Enters Saudi Arabia
Tencent Cloud, in collaboration with Mobily, launched the “Step into Saudi Arabia” plan, aiming to accelerate the digital transformation in the Middle East.
At LEAP in March, Tencent Cloud announced a strategic partnership with Mobily, a leading telecommunications service provider in Saudi Arabia, to jointly launch the “Step into Saudi Arabia” plan.
Leveraging the powerful technical support of Tencent Cloud’s proprietary cloud platform TCE, this plan aims to accelerate the digital transformation in Saudi Arabia and further consolidate its position as a global business and entertainment hub.
This cooperation is another important move in Tencent Cloud’s overseas strategic layout.
Since 2016, Tencent Cloud has been actively expanding its overseas market, exporting mature products and technologies rigorously polished in the Chinese market to various regions around the world.
This strategy not only provides strong cloud service support for the overseas expansion of Chinese enterprises but also facilitates foreign companies’ entry into China and serves local customers overseas.
2. Huawei Cloud Enters Saudi Arabia
In September 2023, the Huawei Cloud Saudi Summit was grandly held, where Huawei announced a major news: the official launch of the Riyadh node of Huawei Cloud, marking a solid step forward in promoting Saudi Arabia’s digital economic growth.
As a leading global cloud service provider, Huawei Cloud has been committed to providing innovative, reliable, secure, and sustainable cloud services to enterprises.
The opening of the Riyadh node in Saudi Arabia is an important layout of Huawei Cloud in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa regions, bringing unprecedented cloud service experience to local enterprises.
The Riyadh node of Huawei Cloud adopts advanced 3AZ architecture, ensuring high availability, low latency, and security of cloud services.
This architecture can ensure the stable operation of various businesses, providing stable and efficient cloud services for both large enterprises and startups.
In addition, the Riyadh node covers all existing operators such as STC, Zain, and Mobily, providing more convenient network connections for local enterprises.
Huawei Cloud’s data centers in Saudi Arabia will strictly comply with local data regulations, ensuring that all data is stored and processed locally.
This measure not only ensures the security of data but also meets the Saudi government’s requirements for data sovereignty.
3. Alibaba Cloud Enters Saudi Arabia
In recent years, Alibaba Cloud, as a leading global cloud computing service provider, has actively expanded its overseas market to help global enterprises achieve digital transformation.
Saudi Arabia, as an important economic entity in the Middle East, naturally becomes an important part of Alibaba Cloud’s overseas layout.
As early as the end of 2020, Alibaba Cloud established an office in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and established a local team to provide comprehensive cloud computing services to enterprises in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
This move not only reflects Alibaba Cloud’s emphasis on the Saudi market but also lays a solid foundation for its long-term development in the Middle East region.
In August 2021, Alibaba Cloud announced cooperation with the Saudi Tourism Authority to assist the Saudi Tourism Authority in improving the digital experience of tourists by providing cloud infrastructure, databases, and other cloud computing technical support.
This cooperation not only enhances the digital level of the Saudi tourism industry but also provides tourists with more convenient and efficient services.
In May 2022, Saudi Telecom Company, together with Yad Capital, Alibaba Cloud, and Saudi AI and Saudi Information Technology, jointly established a cloud computing joint venture company in Riyadh.
The registered capital of this joint venture company is as high as 894 million Saudi riyals, with Saudi Telecom holding 55%, Yad Capital holding 27%, Alibaba Cloud holding 10%, and Saudi AI and Saudi Information Technology holding 4% each.
The establishment of this joint venture company not only marks the deep cooperation between Alibaba Cloud and the Saudi market but also injects new impetus into the development of its cloud computing business in the Middle East region.
4. Where is Baidu Cloud?
With the advancement of digitalization, cloud services have become a key support for enterprise transformation and innovation.
Baidu, as one of China’s internet giants, and its cloud service business – Baidu Intelligent Cloud, have attracted much attention.
On February 28, 2024, Baidu released its “Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Report,” revealing its strong revenue growth and market performance but also highlighting its lagging layout in certain international markets.
The financial data shows that Baidu Intelligent Cloud contributed significantly to the overall performance, with total revenue reaching 8.4 billion RMB in the fourth quarter alone.
This growth was driven by Baidu’s continuous investment and innovation in the field of artificial intelligence.
Notably, Wenxin Yiyuan, a key AI product launched by Baidu, demonstrated substantial growth in user adoption and API calls for the Wenxin Large Model API throughout 2023.
By the end of that year, Wenxin Yiyuan’s user base exceeded 100 million, showcasing strong market appeal and application potential.
Baidu’s CEO, Li Yanhong, proudly stated in a previous speech that while there are over 200 large models in China, the call volume of Wenxin Large Model alone exceeds the sum of calls from these 200-plus large models.
This statement not only highlights Baidu’s leading position in the AI field but also demonstrates the new growth space brought by the Wenxin Large Model.
Further affirming Baidu Intelligent Cloud’s market advantage, the “IDC China AI Public Cloud Service Market Share, 2022” report by IDC showed that Baidu Intelligent Cloud ranked first with a market share of 69.7%, achieving a growth rate of 80.6% in the Chinese AI public cloud service market in 2022.
This achievement is attributed to Baidu Intelligent Cloud’s integrated solutions, which have served over 200 government customers, facilitating digital transformation and intelligent upgrading for cities of different scales and administrative levels.
However, despite Baidu Intelligent Cloud’s remarkable performance in the domestic market, its international expansion, particularly in markets like Saudi Arabia, has been slow.
Saudi Arabia, as a significant economic entity in the Middle East, has shown keen interest in AI development, presenting an excellent opportunity for Baidu Intelligent Cloud to showcase its technological prowess and align with market trends.
Regrettably, Baidu Intelligent Cloud has yet to make a concrete entry into the Saudi market, missing out on numerous opportunities.
With the global cloud service market becoming increasingly competitive, major players are actively expanding into international markets.
Saudi Arabia has not only attracted Chinese giants like Tencent Cloud, Huawei Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud but also recently saw Amazon announce a multi-billion-dollar investment into its cloud market.
For Baidu Intelligent Cloud to establish a foothold in the global market, especially in strategically significant markets like Saudi Arabia, it must accelerate its internationalization efforts.
Time is running short, and seizing opportunities and catching up will be crucial for its future development.