SAN FRANCISCO — China’s largest Internet company, Alibaba, is adding to its modest presence in Silicon¹ Valley, but not in the way many have expected.

旧金山——中国最大的互联网公司阿里巴巴准备增加它在硅谷有限的存在感，但其方式并不像许多人预期的那样。

In an announcement on Wednesday, the Chinese e-commerce giant said it planned to open its first data center outside of China in Silicon Valley. Instead of supporting the company’s hugely popular e-commerce sites, the center will help Alibaba spread a less well-known but growing side of its business: cloud services for businesses.

这家中国电商巨头周三发表声明称，它计划在硅谷开设它在中国以外的首家数据中心。这座中心不是为了给阿里巴巴极受欢迎的电商网站提供支持，而是将帮助它扩展不那么有名但却在一直增长的业务领域：企业云服务。

Similar to the services offered by Amazon that lease computing³ power to businesses, Alibaba has been slowly wooing clients in China to use its services. Many vendors⁴ who sell on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites use the services, but it has been slowly adding larger clients.

与亚马逊向企业出租计算能力的服务相似，阿里巴巴一直在慢慢拉拢中国客户，希望他们能使用自己的服务。阿里巴巴电商网站上的许多卖家会使用这些服务，但大客户的增长较为缓慢。

The company said the new data center would first cater⁵ to Chinese businesses operating in China, but in the second half of the year do more to aim at foreign clients. The company did not specify⁶ when the center would open, how much it was investing in the center, or how large it would be.

阿里巴巴表示，这座新数据中心将首先满足在中国运营的中国企业的需求，但他们下半年将采取更多措施来吸引外国客户。声明中并未说明这个中心的开放时间、投资金额和规模大小。

Using the name Aliyun to refer to the company’s cloud operations, Ethan Sicheng Yu, a vice² president, said: “Aliyun hopes to meet the needs of Chinese enterprises in the United States, and the ultimate objective of Aliyun is to bring cost-efficient and cutting-edge cloud computing services to benefit more clients outside China to boost their business development.”

谈到公司的这种名为“阿里云”的服务时，阿里巴巴副总裁喻思成表示，“阿里云希望能够满足在美中国企业的需求，阿里云的最终目标是带来合算而先进的云计算服务，使更多海外客户受益，推动他们的业务发展。”

Though Alibaba has a significant share of the market selling computing services to businesses in China, it’s an open question whether the company can win over more foreign clients. A Chinese company first, it will have to put into place English-speaking staff members to support and sell to the businesses, while also making its software easy to use in other languages.

虽然阿里巴巴在中国的计算服务市场占据重要份额，但该公司能否吸引更多外国客户还很难说。它首先是一家中国公司，需要安排会讲英语的员工来支持工作并说服其他企业使用其产品，同时还要使其软件在其他语言中可以简便操作。

Still, with a labor⁷ force primarily in China, the company may be able to compete on cost. It will also no doubt get a boost from the growing number of Chinese companies that are seeking to invest and advertise in the United States.

不过，由于劳动力主要在中国，阿里巴巴或许可以在成本上具有竞争力。此外，越来越多的中国企业正寻求在美国投资和打广告，阿里巴巴无疑会从中受益。