Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, said in a meeting with Guangzhou officials that Alibaba would set up its southern China regional data center in Guangzhou.

Sina.com reports that Ma said that Alibaba has mainly focused on the Yangtze River Delta region for its development in the past years, but it will now strengthen development in Guangdong, particularly in the province's capital city of Guangzhou. Ma said that Guangdong has a large number of SMEs and a large Internet population, which made Alibaba confident of the development there.

Alibaba has pledged to invest US$50 million to building the Southern China Operation Center and Pearl River Delta Region Service Center in Guangzhou, and to expand the scale of its call center.