Alibaba to raise $3.2 billion via convertible bond to fund cloud growth

China ecommerce leader Alibaba on Thursday said it plans to raise about $3.2 billion through the sale of a zero-coupon convertible bond to fund international expansion and to strengthen its cloud computing business.

Alibaba, among China’s most aggressive adopters of artificial intelligence, said it would use nearly 80% of the proceeds to expand data centres, upgrade technology and improve services to meet rising demand for cloud computing solutions.