By Reuters

(Reuters) - Alibaba shares fell 8% in early Hong Kong trade on Monday after the tech ‌company finalised a HK$80 billion ($10.21 billion) share placement ‌at HK$112.70 apiece, in a deal aimed at funding artificial intelligence-related development.

The ​Chinese e-commerce and cloud computing company priced 710 million new shares at an 8.4% discount to the last close of its Hong Kong-listed stock.

The deal is the largest-ever primary follow-on ‌offering by a Hong ⁠Kong-listed company and the third-largest globally this year after offerings by Alphabet and Intel.

Alibaba intends ⁠to use proceeds to fund AI development, including the expansion of related infrastructure.

The share placement comes a week after Alibaba ​reported quarterly ​earnings in which it ​said it had already spent ‌nearly half of its three-year capital expenditure plan. It brought forward its projected payback on AI investment to two and a half years from three due to surging demand for AI services.

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Its quarterly net profit fell 75% from ‌a year earlier due primarily to ​AI-related spending.

Last week, digital technology and ​AI division Alibaba ​Cloud launched its third data centre in South ‌Korea, bringing its network to ​104 availability zones ​across 30 regions. The move was a part of Alibaba's AI infrastructure pledge, announced in October, to ​invest 380 billion ‌yuan ($56.54 billion) over three years.

($1 = 7.8391 Hong Kong dollars)

($1 = ​6.7210 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Sherin Sunny in ​Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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