Cloudflare Inc. and JD Cloud, the technology services arm affiliated with China’s JD.com, plan to deepen their partnership as they seek to build a global platform for deploying and scaling artificial intelligence inference workloads.
The expanded collaboration targets rising demand for geographically distributed AI infrastructure, as companies grapple with latency constraints and cross-border deployment challenges. The two firms said the initiative will support developers building the next generation of AI-driven applications by simplifying how inference workloads are managed across regions.
The rapid adoption of AI over the past three years has placed growing strain on latency-sensitive systems. Under the enhanced partnership, Cloudflare and JD Cloud aim to offer a unified networking environment that could cut AI inference latency by as much as 80%. The platform is designed to link international developers to users in China, while allowing Chinese developers to reach global markets more easily.
“The future of AI depends on a truly global network that can operate at scale,” Cloudflare co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Matthew Prince said. He added that the partnership with JD Cloud removes technical and operational barriers that often complicate cross-border AI development, helping businesses compete in an increasingly international digital economy.
The expansion builds on a collaboration that began five years ago. By combining Cloudflare’s global connectivity network with JD Cloud’s infrastructure, customers can now activate services in China with minimal configuration and without rewriting code. Traffic originating in China is routed automatically to JD Cloud’s local data centers, while users elsewhere are served from the nearest Cloudflare location.
The joint offering also strengthens security and resilience. Cloudflare’s web application firewall, distributed denial-of-service protection and global content delivery network are integrated to improve performance and protect applications from cyber threats. JD Cloud said the partnership aligns with its broader strategy of leveraging JD.com’s technological and logistical capabilities to deliver reliable, high-quality services to enterprises and developers worldwide.
