Alibaba to Invest $28 Billion over 3 Years in Cloud Solutions

In a major effort to extend one of its fastest-growing business segments to more countries, China-based Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will invest $28 billion on cloud infrastructure such as data centers over the next three years,

The Chinese e-commerce giant plans to build more data centers to complement an existing worldwide network covering 21 regions, the company said in a statement. Alibaba will continue to develop its own technologies in areas such as AI-inference chips to support that expansion in cloud services.

Cloud computing has been one of the fastest-growing initiatives for Alibaba as it expands beyond its traditional e-commerce focus. The sector’s revenue rose 62% to 10.7 billion yuan in the December quarter, driven by contributions from the company’s public cloud and hybrid cloud operations.

Alibaba shares fell earlier this year, but have recovered in recent weeks and are now little changed for the year.