Alibaba completes a record Hong Kong share placement to fund its AI buildout

Alibaba completed a placement of 710 million newly issued shares in Hong Kong, raising HK$80 billion (roughly US$10.2 billion), priced at HK$112.70 a share after pricing was set on 23 August. Reuters reported the deal as the largest-ever primary follow-on offering by a Hong Kong-listed company, and the third-largest globally in 2026 behind offerings from Alphabet and Intel. Shares priced at an 8.4% discount to the prior close, and Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed stock fell about 8.5% on the announcement — its steepest one-day drop since early 2025 — even as Reuters reported institutional demand running to roughly three times the shares on offer.

Alibaba said it intended to use the full net proceeds to extend its AI capabilities: about 60% for expanding global computing infrastructure, and the remaining 40% for hyperscale AI datacentre construction and cloud infrastructure upgrades, which it described as support for an “Agentic Cloud architecture.”

The raise followed Alibaba’s own earnings report days earlier, in which quarterly capital expenditure had already climbed roughly 75% year on year to fund AI infrastructure, pushing free cash flow negative. Rather than pause that spending, Alibaba turned to public equity markets to fund further expansion — a financing route (as opposed to debt or free cash flow) that set it apart from US hyperscalers pursuing similar buildouts, and signalled that the company judged the infrastructure investment case strong enough to accept both a market-priced discount and a sharp share-price fall to secure the capital.