Tencent Holdings Ltd’s shares rose to their highest since 2021 after DeepSeek, the AI service that’s shaken up the industry since its emergence this year, debuted on the big tech company’s WeChat social media platform.
Shenzhen-based Tencent is now integrating DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence model into WeChat search, the company said in a statement. The internet and games giant joins a wave of government bodies and service providers embracing DeepSeek’s software across the Chinese mainland. The move helped lift confidence for Tencent’s prospects, following a year of strong game releases that’s seen its shares rise more than 70 percent over the past year.
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“Widespread AI adoption could boost Chinese EPS by 2.5 percent per year over the next decade,” Goldman Sachs analysts including Kinger Lau wrote in a note. “As promising as AI could be to China’s growth trajectory, we believe forceful policy stimulus is still required to address deep-rooted macro challenges and drive sustainable equity gains.”
DeepSeek’s release of the R1 reasoning chatbot on Jan 20 has proven transformative for global stock markets, slashing over a trillion dollars in value from US-listed companies investing heavily in the most powerful hardware for AI development.
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It’s also driven a $1.3 trillion rally in the mainland as investors bet on more advances to come, though the rise has not been uniform. Baidu Inc, which is also building DeepSeek into its search product, was down more than 5 percent in Hong Kong Monday.