Chinese retailer Alibaba Group and Japanese telecom giant Softbank announced to form a joint venture to launch cloud computing services in Japan, reported Securities Times on May 13. The new joint venture, which is called SB Cloud Corporation, will establish a data center in Japan to provide cloud-computing services with the technical supports and cloud computing solutions from Alibaba's parent company, AliCloud. This venture, of which Softbank and Alibaba will have a 60% and 40% stake, respectively, will allow AliCloud to manage its private data to customers ranging from startups to multinational companies. On the back of its foundation in the Chinese market, AliCloud plans to expand to worldwide markets and set up data centers in Europe, Middle East, and India.