China’s Tencent says it is expanding testing of ‘Hunyuan’ AI model

People walk past the Tencent headquarters in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, in Guangdong province. Picture: AFP

People walk past the Tencent headquarters in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, in Guangdong province. Picture: AFP

Published Aug 4, 2023

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China’s Tencent Holdings said yesterday that it has started internal testing of its self-developed artificial intelligence (AI) model, which was now being integrated with a number of internal services and products.

Tencent said its foundation AI model named “Hunyuan” had been integrated with a range of products, such as Tencent Cloud, Tencent Meeting and Tencent Docs.

“The Tencent Hunyuan large model, completely developed by ourselves from scratch, has now entered the application testing phase within the company,” the company said.

This comes after Chinese regulators published a set of interim rules on generative AI last month, paving the way for Chinese tech companies such as Tencent and Alibaba to roll out products with AI features as soon as late August once they obtain approvals.

AI has become a focus for Tencent in recent months. Reuters first reported the company’s effort to develop the Hunyuan model in February. In a call with analysts in May, Tencent said AI would be a significant “growth multiplier”.

Yesterday, Tencent also listed Tencent Games, Tencent Advertising, QQ Browser, WeChat Search and Tencent Fintech as lines of business that have been testing the Hunyuan model recently.

“Initial effects have been achieved and more businesses and applications are in the process of being connected (to the model),” the Shenzhen-based company said.

REUTERS