en.Wedoany.com Reported - On May 13, 2026, at Tencent Holdings' Annual General Meeting held in Shenzhen, China, in response to a shareholder's direct question about whether the company's AI business had fallen behind, Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng offered a vivid analogy: "A year ago, we thought we had boarded the ship, but later we found that the ship was leaking. Now, we feel like we've managed to stand on it, but we still can't sit down yet, and we still hope the ship can speed up a bit." This candid response outlined, for the first time from a strategic height, the exploration process and sense of urgency of this Chinese tech giant in the field of AI.
At the meeting, Ma Huateng elaborated on Tencent's journey in AI from its inception to its catch-up phase. He frankly stated that Tencent's core foundational capabilities in AI were not as prominent as in social networking and gaming in the early days, which is an objective fact. However, in recent years, through high-intensity talent development, deep team management optimization, and systematic internal training, the company has continuously addressed its technical shortcomings and has now moved from the initial exploratory stage onto a track of stable development. He emphasized that Tencent may not necessarily be the fastest company in the industry to seize AI opportunities, but it must persist in taking the right path, steadily advancing by leveraging its unique advantages within its social, content, and enterprise service ecosystems. Ma Huateng further pointed out, "We can't just casually cross over and grab someone else's turf just because we see them doing something there. We've tried grabbing territory before, but basically failed later," clarifying Tencent's differentiated approach on the AI track.
On the same day as the Annual General Meeting, Tencent released its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. A series of key data points corroborated its heavy investment in the AI business. The financial report showed that Tencent achieved revenue of RMB 196.46 billion in Q1, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%; non-IFRS operating profit was RMB 75.63 billion. Excluding the impact of revenue, costs, and expenses related to new AI products (Hy, Yuanbao, CodeBuddy, WorkBuddy, and QClaw), this profit figure grew 17% year-on-year to RMB 84.4 billion, clearly revealing the structural impact of the emerging AI business on the overall profit statement during its investment phase. To support underlying model iteration and related infrastructure construction, Tencent's R&D investment in the quarter climbed 19% year-on-year to RMB 22.54 billion, while capital expenditure reached as high as RMB 31.94 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16%, primarily directed towards server procurement and data center expansion. Strong operating cash flow provided security for this expenditure, with free cash flow reaching RMB 56.7 billion for the quarter.
Ma Huateng's "ship theory" proposed at the shareholder meeting was not an isolated strategic statement, but a public endorsement of Tencent's recent reconstruction and breakthroughs in AI foundational capabilities. In his commentary on the financial report released during the same period, he revealed that the restructured AI R&D team had rebuilt the AI infrastructure and successfully developed a preview version of the Hy3 model, which achieved leading performance among models of comparable parameter scale. According to previous statements by Tencent President Martin Lau, the company invested RMB 18 billion in new AI products in 2025, with plans to "at least double" that amount in 2026. Furthermore, Tencent is secretly developing an AI agent project deemed "top secret" for its WeChat platform, intending to connect its ecosystem of millions of Mini Programs and serve over 1.4 billion monthly active users.
This article is compiled by Wedoany. All AI citations must indicate the source as "Wedoany". If there is any infringement or other issues, please notify us promptly, and we will modify or delete it accordingly. Email: news@wedoany.com
