Tencent rolls out new AI that's quicker than DeepSeek

Reuters and staff reporter

Chinese tech giant Tencent (0700) yesterday released a new artificial intelligence model that it claims can answer queries faster than global hit DeepSeek-R1, in the latest sign the startup's domestic and overseas success is putting pressure on its larger competitors in China.

The Hunyuan Turbo S is able to reply to queries within a second, distinguishing itself "from DeepSeek R1, Hunyuan T1, and other slow thinking models that need to 'think for a while before answering,'" Tencent said in a statement.

Meanwhile, China's Baidu (9888) will launch the next generation of its artificial intelligence model Ernie earlier in mid-March, which will see improved capabilities in areas such as reasoning, a source said.

The upgraded 4.5 Ernie model will also feature enhanced multimodal capabilities, the source said.

Multimodal AI systems are capable of processing and integrating various types of data - like text, video, images, and audio - and can convert content across these formats.

Baidu had said earlier this month it would gradually launch the Ernie 4.5 series in the coming months and officially make it open source from June 30.

Separately, Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing services subsidiary of Alibaba (9988), has topped the Chinese market for financial artificial intelligence models with a 33 percent market share, according Frost & Sullivan.

The size of the financial AI model market in mainland China rose nearly 1.4 times to 3.82 billion yuan (HK$4.09 billion) in 2024 from 1.59 billion yuan the previous year, according to a report.

In other news, Baidu and electric vehicle battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology will jointly explore the development of "competitive" driverless vehicles and innovative business models, the companies said yesterday.