RIYADH — Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest telecom operator in the Kingdom, and eWTP Arabia Capital, one of the largest venture capital funds in the region, jointly announced on Monday that they will partner with Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group to provide the high-performance public cloud service in Saudi Arabia. The company views the Kingdom as the strategic epicenter of its operations in the region and is keen to make its contribution to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Under this partnership, STC will be able to leverage the proven cloud-based technologies and services of Alibaba Cloud to accelerate the growth of the local technology ecosystem. Alibaba Cloud is planning to invest in the Kingdom, up to USD 500 million over the next five years. The investment will including provide world-class comprehensive resources to help build sustainability and ensure localization. In addition, a new office will be set up in Riyadh to provide better services to local customers, also be the regional training and management center for the next chapter. As one of the world’s top cloud providers, Alibaba Cloud’s public cloud offerings will cover the latest advancements on the public cloud platform which have been used to support the business of Alibaba Group, taking the digitalization of local enterprises and SMEs to the next level. “Saudi Arabia is a strategic market for us. Alibaba Cloud is committed to delivering our best-in-class services, solutions as well as our business practices in digital transformation to the partners and customers we work with in the Kingdom. We will invest and provide a wide range of resources to support our partners locally,” said Jeff Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Partner of Alibaba Group. Abdullah Amer Al-Swaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, commented that MCIT would like to support companies with wise foresight such as Alibaba Cloud, and they look forward to Alibaba Cloud’s future performance and contribution to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. “This collaboration is a significant milestone for STC in our efforts to contribute to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 by introducing a trusted cloud service partner. It’s pivotal for companies to deploy and maintain an elastic, scalable, and secure IT infrastructure to keep competitive and innovative in the digital era. We are excited to partner with Alibaba Cloud to bring their expertise to our customers,” said Eng. Nasser Bin Sulaiman Al Nasser, CEO of STC Group. Jerry Li, Managing Partner of eWTP Arabia Fund shows great confidence, “eWTP Arabia Capital is committed to ensuring that this partnership makes a strong effort toward the realization of Vision 2030 goals. We are very proud and thankful to bring both these great companies together with the support of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity Programming and Drones. We believe that this would support our portfolio companies as well as local startups, the local ecosystem becomes more competitive in the future.” — SG