China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has announced plans to invest 200 billion yuan ($28.26 billion) in its cloud computing division over the next three years.

 

The money will be used to invest in infrastructure and technologies related to operating systems, servers, chips and networks, Alibaba said, adding that it was spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, said a CNBC report. 

 

“The Covid-19 pandemic has posed additional stress on the overall economy across sectors, but it also steers us to put more focus on the digital economy,” Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said in a statement.

 

Alibaba is the biggest cloud computing provider by market share in China — but it still trails US giants Amazon and Microsoft globally.