China’s Tencent pledges new wave of AI investment as it bets on WeChat agents

Tencent Holdings pledged to double its investment in artificial intelligence products and models in 2026, a bigger bet from the tech giant as it gains greater confidence in the technology’s capability to drive future growth across its businesses. The Shenzhen-based company dedicated 18 billion yuan (US$2.6 billion) to the development of new AI products in 2025, including 7 billion yuan in the fourth quarter alone, said Tencent president Martin Lau Chi-ping at a media briefing on Wednesday. “We will at least double the amount of investment this year,” Lau said. The outlays would unlock new opportunities for Tencent’s existing core businesses, supported by the company’s strong profit performance, Lau added. Tencent is also developing AI agents within its super app WeChat. “Our next step is to build agents based on the diverse WeChat ecosystem of mini programs, content, commerce, social and payments,” Lau said. Lau cited the “complete protection” of user privacy as one of the challenges facing WeChat agents, for which there was currently no specific timeline for release. OpenClaw apps have enabled the deployment of AI across various scenarios rather than just chatbots, “providing inspiration for the WeChat agents” that Tencent was developing, said CEO and chairman Pony Ma Huateng. Backed by the strength of its WeChat ecosystem, Tencent has been described by Morgan Stanley analysts as a “late starter but fast follower” in AI development. Tencent has recently capitalised on the sudden surge in popularity of the open-source AI agent OpenClaw among Chinese users. Last week, it announced QClaw, an AI assistant integrated with WeChat, following the release of its own OpenClaw-style platform, WorkBuddy, designed to be compatible with the agent’s skills. An update for QClaw, made available on Wednesday, now integrates the assistant within WeChat as a more accessible mini-program. Last week, the firm opened the product for public testing with WeChat connectivity, but not as a mini-program. Earlier on Wednesday, Tencent reported a 17 per cent jump in net income to reach 64.7 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase largely in line with analyst expectations. Total sales reached 194.4 billion yuan for the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 13 per cent. The quarterly performance contributed to a profit of 259.6 billion yuan for the company in 2025, 17 per cent higher than the year before, while annual sales grew 14 per cent to 751.8 billion yuan, hewing close to analysts’ estimates. The AI investment was made on top of the firm’s purchases of graphics processing units (GPUs) and other capital expenditures, according to the company. Tencent’s total capex in 2025, however, fell below market expectations. Its figure for the December quarter was 19.6 billion yuan, almost half the amount recorded during the same period in 2024. At that time, the company was stockpiling advanced GPUs to meet internal demands and enhance its cloud computing services – which also created a high baseline for the following year. Total capex for 2025 was 79.2 billion yuan, up only 3 per cent compared with 2024. Lau cited a lower availability of GPUs caused by supply constraints as the main reason for the lower-than-expected spending in 2025. The company will ramp up its purchases of GPUs in 2026 to accelerate its AI development, he said, so long as supply can meet growing demand. The company’s computing capacity is expected to ramp up in the second half of 2026, driven by leasing, availability of imported GPUs, as well as its increased purchase of domestic chips, chief strategy officer James Mitchell said in a call with analysts. Tencent’s AI investments have been conservative compared with its domestic and global peers. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding unveiled a 380 billion yuan, three-year AI investment plan last February, and has reportedly considered boosting that expenditure to 480 billion yuan. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. US social media giant Meta has said it would spend up to US$135 billion on capex in 2026, while e-commerce giant Amazon projected a US$200 billion outlay this year. Tencent’s Hong Kong-listed shares closed at HK$550.5 on Wednesday ahead of the results announcement, up 0.1 per cent for the day. The company has a string of new AI products in the pipeline, including an upgrade for its Hunyuan foundational model, now known as HY, in early April. The coming Tencent HY 3.0, which is currently under internal testing, will see a major update after the high-profile recruitment of former OpenAI researcher Vinces Yao Shunyu as part of a reshuffle of the company’s AI group. Tencent is among the world’s largest video game publishers by revenue, and its super app WeChat recorded 1.42 billion monthly active users as of December, mostly in China. Video game sales, traditionally the company’s strongest revenue stream, grew 15 per cent domestically and 32 per cent overseas to reach 38.2 billion yuan and 21.1 billion yuan, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2025. Jefferies analyst Thomas Chong said in a recent note that AI deployment could further boost user engagement and monetisation in Tencent’s gaming segment. However, Tencent’s international gaming business could face regulatory risks as the Trump administration was reportedly debating whether its investments in the US and Finnish gaming firms posed “a national security”, according to a Financial Times report earlier this month. Lau said that the company has been in “constructive communication” with US regulators for some time now, and the overall risks were “manageable”. “We believe the situation is moving in a positive direction,” Lau said. Revenues for Tencent’s marketing-services segment, which includes its fast-growing advertising business, rose 17 per cent to 41.1 billion yuan, driven by AI-powered ad targeting. Fintech and business services, including AI-related cloud services, increased 8 per cent in the fourth quarter to 60.8 billion yuan on the back of rising demand for AI-related services.

China’s Tencent pledges new wave of AI investment as it bets on WeChat agents

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The tech giant reported a 17 per cent increase in net income last year, in line with analysts’ predictions, as fervour over AI agents grips China

The tech giant reported a 17 per cent increase in net income last year, in line with analysts’ predictions, as fervour over AI agents grips China