BEIJING -- Alibaba's cloud computing branch announced on Monday it would invest 200 billion yuan (about $28 billion) in the research and development of core technologies such as cloud operating system, servers, chips and networks within three years.

Alibaba Cloud Computing Co Ltd. said the investment will further expand the scale of Aliyun's data centers and servers.

Zhang Jianfeng, president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said that cloud intelligence is one of Alibaba's core strategies, which would not be affected by the impact of the novel coronavirus.

He said the company has been committed to data center construction for 11 years and boasts over 100 cloud data centers in 21 regions around the world.

Alibaba will apply its latest tech research achievements in the building of the next-generation data centers.