Chinese technology giant Tencent has announced the global rollout of new scenario-driven artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, aiming to help enterprises improve industrial efficiency and accelerate international expansion.
The announcement came Tuesday at the Global Digital System Summit 2025, held on September 16 and 17 at the Shenzhen World Exhibition and Convention Center.
During his keynote, Dowson Tong, Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent and CEO of its Cloud and Smart Industries Group, said: “Practical applications of AI drive business efficiency, while international expansion unlocks new growth opportunities. The solutions we launch today will empower enterprises on their journey toward intelligence and globalization, ensuring sustainable and scalable growth.”
At the summit, Tencent Cloud unveiled its Agent Development Platform 3.0, enabling companies to create autonomous AI agents and integrate them into operations such as customer service, marketing, inventory management, and research. The company also introduced its Agent Runtime infrastructure, designed to provide a robust environment for developing and deploying these agents.
Tencent expanded its SaaS+AI suite, adding advanced office collaboration tools. These include AI Minutes within Tencent Meetings, which recorded 150% year-on-year growth, and Learn Share, now used by more than 300,000 clients with a 92% accuracy rate. Another highlight was Code Buddy, an AI programming tool that cuts coding time by 40% and boosts R&D efficiency by 16%.
The company also launched new models in its Hunyuan 3D series, offering advanced 3D content generation for media and gaming. With more than 2.6 million downloads on Hugging Face, Hunyuan has become the most widely adopted open-source 3D model series.
Over the past year, the Hunyuan ecosystem has expanded with more than 30 models, including translation tools covering 30+ languages, as well as image, video, and 3D content generation tools.
Expanding global footprint
Tencent Cloud reported that its international customer base has doubled in the past year, with double-digit growth across Asia over the last three years in markets such as Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Japan. More than 90% of China’s leading internet companies and 95% of its top gaming firms now rely on Tencent Cloud to power their overseas growth.
Day one of the summit featured discussions with global partners including UAE-based e&, Indonesia’s Dana, GoTo Group, and MUFG Bank (China). Executives highlighted the importance of adopting AI and cloud solutions to drive global competitiveness.
Tencent also announced a series of new partnerships across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Notably, it revealed plans to invest $150 million in its first Middle East data center in Saudi Arabia, while building a third data center in Osaka, Japan, alongside a new regional office.
Alongside its technology push, Tencent plans to raise about $1 billion by issuing offshore yuan-denominated “dim sum” bonds in three tranches (5, 10, and 30 years). Initial price guidance stands at 2.6%, 3.0%, and 3.6% respectively, targeting non-US investors.
The company continues to spend heavily on AI, though at a moderated pace. After capital expenditures of 36.6 billion yuan ($5.14 billion) in Q4 2024 and 27.5 billion yuan in Q1 2025, spending fell to 19.1 billion yuan in Q2. Tencent has told analysts it will adopt a more cautious approach to ensure long-term profitability from its AI initiatives.
Rival Alibaba recently raised $3.2 billion through zero-coupon convertible bonds to fund international growth and cloud expansion. Around 80% of those proceeds will be directed toward new data centers, technology upgrades, and improved cloud services.
Today, Tencent operates 55 data centers across 21 markets, supported by nine international technical hubs in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
The company has also released international versions of key products, including Code Buddy and Cloud Mall, while its EdgeOne security and acceleration platform has gained more than 100,000 global users within three months of its latest update, reducing website deployment times from a full day to just one minute.
