Tencent quickens AI spending after sales grew fastest since 2023

Tencent Holdings Ltd. outlined plans to sharply raise spending on AI infrastructure after posting its fastest pace of revenue growth since 2023, suggesting China’s most valuable company is intent on keeping pace with rivals in the post-DeepSeek era.

Revenue rose a better-than-projected 11% to 172.5 billion yuan ($23.8 billion) for the three months ended December, while net income almost doubled. The company also unveiled plans to buy back at least HK$80 billion worth of shares and proposed a 32% rise in its annual dividend for 2025. Shares in Prosus NV, a major shareholder, gained more than 1% in Europe.

China’s most valuable company shed light on its AI ambitions—a focus for investors keen to know how it will commercialize artificial intelligence and keep pace with rivals such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. after DeepSeek’s emergence galvanized development. Tencent plans to devote a low-teens percentage of its 2025 revenue toward capital expenditures, including on AI infrastructure—more than $10 billion, based on analysts’ projected sales this year. 

Billionaire founder Pony Ma described how Tencent made the “careful consideration” to rely on both in-house and open-sourced models—in much the same way it publishes both its own and third-party games. It plans to use AI to support a broad range of services from its core WeChat service to content. Tencent ramped up its purchases of AI chips in 2024’s final quarter to serve increased demand, which should translate into faster cloud revenue growth, executives said.

“We have adopted a dual-core technical strategy,” Ma told reporters during a briefing. “Throughout our journey in the gaming industry, we have always emphasized a balanced approach between self-developed and licensed games, which complement each other and ultimately deliver the best user experience. We remain committed” to that philosophy.

Tencent is among the major Chinese tech names to report this week, wrapping up a closely watched earnings season for a trillion-dollar sector that’s rounding a corner. 

President Xi Jinping last month met with prominent entrepreneurs including Tencent chief Ma and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, signaling Beijing’s softening stance toward a private sector it assailed over three years. Also in attendance were a new generation of founders representing industries like chipmaking, electric vehicles and AI, echoing Xi’s priorities during a tech face-off against the US.

That symposium came just weeks after Hangzhou-based DeepSeek launched a model that rivals OpenAI’s while needing much less computing resources. 

The Chinese startup’s R1 has triggered soul-searching among Chinese tech giants, who’re now ramping up the release of similar model upgrades or raising investments in AI infrastructure. Alibaba has pledged to spend more than $50 billion on its AI and cloud computing networks over the next three years, declaring human-like AI capabilities its primary objective.

Tencent gained roughly 30% or $140 billion in market valuation so far this year, helped by a broader Chinese tech rally induced by the rise of DeepSeek. But that lags behind a 70%-plus jump in shares of arch-rival Alibaba, whose Qwen model underpins one of the country’s more popular AI services.

Tencent is playing catch-up. It integrated DeepSeek’s open-sourced models into services including WeChat search and its chatbot Yuanbao, which briefly became the country’s most downloaded free app on iPhone. With Peacekeeper Elite, one of Tencent’s two biggest gaming titles, DeepSeek forms the foundation of a new virtual assistant that teaches players how to shoot. On Tuesday, it released AI services that turn text or images into 3D visuals and graphics, potentially streamlining the often lengthy and costly studio development process.

“Tencent has historically caught up at a later stage, narrowing the market share gap or even surpassing the first mover, backed by its unique WeChat ecosystem,” Goldman Sachs analysts including Ronald Keung wrote in a note before the results. Super-apps like WeChat and ByteDance Ltd.’s Douyin are best positioned to tap into AI application or agent opportunities, they said. 

With a billion-plus users, WeChat remains Tencent’s most dependable asset as it takes on a bigger monetization role in areas from advertising to mini-games and online commerce. It also reflects the economic environment via services like ride-hailing and meal delivery—though the fintech division that incorporates that payments network is now Tencent’s most stagnant unit.

Tencent scored last year with game releases from Nexon Co.’s Dungeon & Fighter Mobile  to its own PC shooter Delta Force—titles it intends to grow into so-called evergreen franchises that can generate steady cash. 

But there’s no guarantee it can repeat that feat in 2025. Tencent joined global peers in slashing development jobs while realigning its focus on fewer key titles. Its pipeline remains strong with a handful of likely hits including Honor of Kings: World, Monster Hunter Outlanders, and the China release of Goddess of Victory: Nikke.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com