When China’s Alibaba Group Holding Limited opened up its first U.S.-based data center earlier this year, many analysts said the company would refrain from trying to muscle in on the turf of more established firms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Instead, most analysts appeared to buy Alibaba’s story that it’s only targeting Chinese businesses that are based in the U.S.

Well, it looks like the analysts were wrong. On Tuesday, the company announced grand plans to expand its reach right around the globe, with the construction of new data centers in Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Simon Hu, president of Alibaba’s cloud computing business, said the move was about expansion. In other words, Alibaba intends to become a global cloud services provider, which means it’s unlikely to be satisified with Chinese customers only.

Alibaba already has a significant cloud presence in its home nation. In the west it’s best known for its ecommerce business, but in China it also happens to be the biggest cloud computing provider. And while it might be satisified with targeting Chinese firms from its new U.S.-based data center for now, it has much bigger ambitions than that.

“We strongly believe our products and services can not only tap into demand from Chinese companies, but also serve overseas clients who run international businesses,” Hu said in an interview posted online by the company.

Hu said that Alibaba would initially look for local partners engaged in foreign markets. The company hasn’t said exactly when it would open its upcoming data centers for business, but it recently took an important step in that direction in the Middle East when it established a joint-venture with Dubai’s Meraas Holding investment firm earlier this month.

Also this month, Alibaba hired Daniel Zhang as its new CEO. Zhang has said that global expansion is the company’s top priority, and a key part of that will be the growth of its cloud computing business.

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