Chinese digital giant Tencent will double its investment in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) products this year, after having invested around 18,000 million yuan (2,279 million euros) in 2025.
The information was given by the president of the technology company, Martin Lau, during a call with analysts after the presentation of the annual results, which indicated an increase of 16% in net profit, to the equivalent of 32,680 million dollars (28,460 million euros), and 14% in revenues, to around 751,766 million dollars (654,712 million euros).
“We expect to invest more than double” in AI products this year, said the official, noting that the disclosed value concerns only the two main services – the large-scale language model Hunyuan and the ‘chatbot’ Yuanbao – excluding functionalities added to existing platforms and costs associated with providing graphics cards to cloud computing customers (‘cloud’).
Martin Lau explained that the resources to finance this investment will come from the “growing profits” of the company’s main business areas, including social networks such as WeChat and video games such as “Clash of Clans”.
The executive stated that the company is going through a “period of transformation” and that strategic investment in AI constitutes a “necessary basis” to add value to operations: “The impact of these investments must be analyzed separately from the profits of current businesses. Revenues from these new AI products will emerge over time, as they are used.”
Tencent, which, according to the bank Morgan Stanley, “started late but recovered quickly” in this area, seeks to compete with other Chinese technological giants, such as Alibaba, which announced in February 2025 an investment of at least 55,300 million dollars (48,166 million euros) over three years in AI and cloud computing.
In the earnings presentation, the Shenzhen-based company also highlighted the hiring of “cutting-edge talent”, including the recent recruitment of researcher Yao Shunyu, a former member of OpenAI – creator of ChatGPT – to lead the development of the Hunyuan model.
The technology company also highlighted that improving its AI capabilities contributed to optimizing advertising services – the fastest growing segment in 2025 – and increasing the use of its video games.
“The growing capabilities of our HY 3.0 language model, as well as the utility of AI products like Yuanbao, WorkBuddy or QClaw, are encouraging early signs that these investments will generate new opportunities,” the document reads.
Tencent, the largest Chinese company by market capitalization and one of the 20 largest in the world, is known for developing WeChat and for being the largest global distributor of video games, with titles such as “League of Legends”.
After the release of the results, the company’s shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today registered a drop of 5.36% at 10:30 am local time (2:30 am, in Lisbon), accumulating a devaluation of 3.43% in the last 12 months.
Leave a Reply