BT in talks with Alibaba over cloud partnership

Alibaba reportedly going after AWS' Europe market share

Alibaba could be about to challenge Amazon's dominance of the European cloud provider market, as it undergoes talks with BT.

The negotiations were confirmed by a BT spokesperson, who refused to provide further details, reported Bloomberg.

Should an agreement be reached, it is likely the partnership would resemble the Chinese internet giant's deal with Vodafone in Germany, a source told Bloomberg. Struck in 2016, the deal led to Alibaba establishing a datacentre in Frankfurt, allowing Vodafone to use the cloud provider's data storage and analytics capabilities.

The Chinese internet giant's European push has included a recent move into France, entering into a similar partnership with transport and communications company Ballore SA.

BT is undergoing an overhaul in the structure of its Global Services division after ousting its CEO last month and announcing thousands of job cuts after reporting poor results earlier this year.

Partnering with Alibaba could bolster BT's cloud computing capabilities, as more customers seek to move their IT capacity off-site.

According to a recenet synergy report, Alibaba Cloud is now the fourth largest cloud provider behind AWS, Microsoft Azure AND Google Cloud.

America's trade war with China has caused Alibaba to scale back activities in the US, and pushing it to develop its European presence further.