Alibaba Cloud vs Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Alibaba Cloud Recognized as a Notable Vendor in Forrester's 'The Web Application Protection Platforms Landscape, Q3 2026'

Alibaba Cloud has been recognized as a Notable Vendor in Forrester's Q3 2026 Web Application Protection Platforms Landscape, highlighting its robust web security capabilities.

China's Ulanqab Data Centers: Who Pays for the Grid Wait

In Ulanqab, a Chinese AI data center hub, grid infrastructure is still under construction, causing delays between completed data centers and their power connection. Operators like GDS invest before service begins and collect no fees until billing starts. The Financial Times reports about 15 GW of committed capacity, while Goldman Sachs counted 12.5 GW. Data centers used 3.27 billion kWh in H1 2026, up 89.5% year-over-year. Power costs in Ulanqab are about Rmb 0.358 per kWh, much cheaper than Beijing's Rmb 0.80. However, substation construction can take three to five years, far longer than the 12 months to build a data center hall. The article examines the financial risk operators carry during these waits.

• About 15 GW of data center capacity has been committed in Ulanqab, according to the Financial Times.
• Goldman Sachs counted 12.5 GW of operating and planned capacity in June, up from 3.3 GW in July 2025.
• Data centers in Ulanqab used 3.27 billion kWh in H1 2026, up 89.5% year-over-year.

Joe Tsai: Open Source Is Europe's AI Opportunity

Alibaba Cloud's blog features a new post by Joe Tsai discussing open source as Europe's AI opportunity, alongside other new posts on QwenWork, Qoder, and AgentCore.

AWS Launches 'Built Together' Community Program for Data Centers

AWS has announced new initiatives to counter criticism over its U.S. data center expansion, including a $1 billion investment over five years for community programs and the 'Amazon Data Center Commitment' with pledges on energy, water, transparency, and employment. It has also ceased using NDAs with government agencies, following Microsoft's similar move. CEO Matt Garman addressed data center 'myths', noting generators run only 10 hours per year and water use is 0.5% of industrial use, while highlighting over $1 billion in community contributions. These actions come amid over 100 proposed moratoriums, some temporary. TechCrunch's Equity podcast debates whether transparency will alleviate backlash, with hosts citing Uber's past secret negotiations as a cautionary tale and Tesla's messaging as another example of poor tech communication.

• AWS invested over $1 billion in communities with data centers over five years.
• AWS stopped using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies for new data centers, following Microsoft's similar announcement.
• AWS data center generators run roughly 10 hours per year (99.9% idle).

Vespa.ai Achieves AWS AI Competency

Vespa.ai announced it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI Competency in the AI Software category. This designation recognizes Vespa as an AWS Partner that helps customers build, deploy, and operate large-scale AI applications on AWS. The Vespa AI Search Platform combines hybrid retrieval, advanced ranking, machine learning inference, and real-time serving in a single platform, reducing infrastructure complexity while providing low latency and scalability for production AI. Vespa is trusted by organizations including Perplexity, Spotify, and Yahoo, powering billions of queries and recommendations across industries such as information platforms, digital commerce, media and advertising, and life sciences. The recognition validates Vespa's expertise in building production AI search applications on AWS.

• Vespa.ai achieved the AWS AI Competency in the AI Software category.
• The designation recognizes Vespa as an AWS Partner for building and operating large-scale AI applications on AWS.
• Vespa AI Search Platform combines hybrid retrieval, advanced ranking, ML inference, and real-time serving.

Startup FinOps: Cloud Cost Optimization Playbook

This playbook outlines practical FinOps steps startups can use to reduce cloud spend without major re-architecture. Key recommendations include making spend visible via enforced cost-allocation tags, scheduling non-production environments to sleep, adding caching and CDNs, cleaning up orphaned resources, rightsizing underutilized compute and databases, and buying commitment discounts (Savings Plans / Reserved Instances) for steady-state baseline usage. The guide recommends measuring cost against business units (e.g., cost per user), validating production changes with metrics, and making a lightweight monthly FinOps review a habit. The author cites typical waste at 25–35% of cloud bills and claims many Series A companies can realize 25–40% savings within 90 days by following these practices.

• Industry data cited: idle resources, over-provisioning, and missed commitment discounts account for roughly 25–35% of the average cloud bill.
• Hosting can consume 6–12% of revenue for early-stage companies, making cloud waste a runway risk.
• Practical low-risk actions recommended: schedule non-production environments to sleep, add caching, route static assets via a CDN, and clean up orphaned resources.