Alibaba announced on Sunday that it’s selling HK$80 billion (about US$10.2 billion) worth of shares to help fund its push into artificial intelligence.
If completed, this would be the biggest primary follow-on share sale ever by a company listed in Hong Kong, and the third-largest in the world this year, behind only Alphabet and Intel.
Alibaba says every cent of the money raised will go toward building out its “full stack” AI capabilities — covering chips, infrastructure, and AI model development. The company plans to sell 710 million shares at HK$112.70 each, a 3.6% discount to its last closing price. It hasn’t given a detailed breakdown of how the money will be split across these areas.
This comes just a week after Alibaba’s latest earnings report, where it revealed it has already used up nearly half of its three-year, multi-billion-dollar spending plan. The company also said it now expects to recoup its AI investments in about 2.5 years, faster than the 3 years it had estimated earlier, thanks to strong demand. Still, profit for the quarter dropped 75% year-on-year as AI spending ramped up. CEO Eddie Wu said the heavy spending now is necessary groundwork to capture future growth.
Sources familiar with the deal said demand from investors — including sovereign wealth funds — was strong enough that Alibaba increased the size of the offering. Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS, and CICC are handling the deal as joint bookrunners.
Because the offering wasn’t registered under US securities law, American investors can’t take part.
The broader context: AI spending has exploded globally since 2022. In the US alone, the four big tech giants — Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta — are expected to spend a combined US$725 billion on AI-related infrastructure in 2026.
