Sourced records of Chinese AI deployments across the Global South and the Middle East

In March 2018, Alibaba Cloud's Jakarta data centre began operations, making it the first international public cloud service provider to operate locally in Indonesia; it subsequently added a second and third data centre in 2019 and 2021 respectively, providing local enterprises — particularly micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and startups — with cloud and AI services including elastic computing, databases, machine learning and data analytics.

Tencent Cloud launched its first Jakarta data centre in April 2021, with initial customers including Bank Neo Commerce and JOOX; its third data centre came online in 2025, alongside an announced investment of approximately USD 500 million in Indonesia by 2030. Since September 2024 it has partnered with the GoTo Group to migrate GoTo's on-demand services system into the local data centre, emphasising data sovereignty and localised compliance while supporting local enterprise AI applications.

Huawei Cloud's Jakarta Region, comprising three availability zones, went into operation in 2022, and a fourth availability zone was announced for addition in 2026. It has opened up its full-stack AI capabilities (including ModelArts, the Versatile agent platform, and others), and together with local partners launched the 'Indonesia Government-Enterprise AI Partnership Alliance,' signing talent cooperation agreements with more than 100 universities and over 20 government departments, and has cumulatively trained more than 100,000 digital talents, positioning itself to build an 'ASEAN AI Engine.'

深交所上市的中国数据中心运营商润泽（Range Technology / RangeIDC，总部河北廊坊）通过其支持的印尼开发商 PT Equator Gate System Batam (EGSB)，在巴淡岛 Nongsa 一块30公顷土地上投资50亿美元建设高密度 AI 数据中心。2026年5月25日，印尼国有电力公司下属 PT PLN Batam 与 EGSB 签署购电协议作为项目第一步；BP Batam 表示将以快速通道推进落地，项目预计创造700–800个数据中心与数字技术专业岗位。据财新/ThinkChina 报道，这是该公司首个海外项目。