Alibaba's Daniel Zhang steps down from cloud business

Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group Holding Ltd announced on Sunday night that Daniel Zhang will step down as chairman and CEO of its cloud business, a move that comes just two months after the company said he would leave his roles as chairman and CEO of Alibaba to focus on the cloud division.

Zhang had previously been concurrently serving in three roles, heading the company and its cloud unit.

As scheduled, Zhang handed over the role of Alibaba's chairman to Joseph Tsai on Sunday, while Wu Yongming took over the CEO role from Zhang.

Meanwhile, Wu will also lead Alibaba's Cloud Intelligence Group as its chairman and CEO after Zhang's departure, the company said in a statement.

Alibaba will invest $1 billion in a technology fund that Zhang will establish, it added.

The latest change in Alibaba's executive leadership came after the company said in March that it would split its business into six main units, with each separate business having the flexibility to raise outside capital and seek its own IPO, the most significant organizational change to the company in its 24-year history.

Alibaba also said in May that it had approved a full spin-off of its cloud intelligence unit, aiming for the division to become an independent publicly listed company within the next 12 months.