Alibaba to Issue HK$80 Billion in New Shares to Fund AI Expansion

Alibaba Group Holding will issue HK$80 billion (US$10.2 billion) worth of new shares and use all of the proceeds to invest in AI, the Chinese tech giant said on Sunday.

The move aims to “extend the company’s global AI leadership”, it said, adding that Alibaba would use the funds raised to “invest in its full-stack AI capabilities”, including expanding and enhancing its AI infrastructure.

The decision underscores Alibaba’s efforts over the past few years to transform from an e-commerce giant into a full-stack AI player with businesses spanning chips, computing infrastructure, large language models and AI applications.

Banks have received pre-launch indications of interest in excess of the deal size “on the back of strong interest received from sovereign wealth funds and global long-only investors”, according to a person familiar with the matter. Alibaba increased the size of the offering to HK$80 billion because of strong investor demand, the source added.

Last week, Alibaba announced a 45 per cent year-over-year jump in its April-to-June quarterly revenue in cloud and AI businesses, with capital expenditure expanding 75 per cent from a year earlier to 67.7 billion yuan (US$10 billion).

Alibaba was expecting its investments in AI computing to break even within three years, with the payback period potentially shortened to about two years as gross margins continued to rise, Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said during an earnings call on Thursday.