Tencent releases open platform to help drive AI projects at other companies

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings is looking to push its advances in artificial intelligence technology as the operating platform for other companies to pursue their own AI initiatives.

“There’s an immense market potential in helping companies and whole industries upgrade their capabilities with AI,” said Hou Xiaonan, the general manager of Tencent’s AI Open Platform and vice-president of its mobile internet group, at a forum on Tuesday under the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.

Hou launched Tencent’s open platform at the event, marking a major campaign for the Shenzhen-based firm to get its AI expertise adopted freely by individual developers and enterprises, a company spokesman said.

The platform will enable enterprises across various industries harness the capabilities of Tencent’s AI Lab, which is focused on machine-learning technology; super app WeChat, which provide speech recognition and natural language processing; and its Computer Vision Research Centre, which is focused on facial recognition technology, according to a statement from the company.

The application of AI technology in industries is still in the early stages, according to Hou. Without specifying if the numbers represent global, Asia-Pacific or China estimates, Hou said less than 15 per cent of companies have adopted AI and that 53 per cent of enterprises have yet to make their operations digital.

Hou said the platform will provide more than 100 system interfaces for various industries. It has already been used by early adopters to identify handwritten documents or details in garment manufacturing process, he said.