Tencent flags progress on three chips in development, investment effort

SHANGHAI, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) touted progress in semiconductor chip development and investment on Wednesday, offering a rare public glimpse of its R&D initiatives.

Best known for computer games and social media app WeChat, Tencent has been steadily investing in research and development of semiconductors, along with other Chinese tech firms.

“Facing scenarios with strong business needs, Tencent has had a long-term plan and investment for chip R&D,” said company official Tang Daosheng, according to a post on the WeChat account for Tencent Cloud.

Tang, a senior executive vice president and chief executive of Tencent’s cloud and smart industry group, flagged advances in three directions at a company event.

He highlighted three chips developed by Tencent. These are a chip for AI computing called Zixiao, another for video processing, known as Canghai, and a chip for high-performance networks that is designated Xuanling.

The company also announced its Orca cloud operating system.

The comments come after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (9988.HK), a Tencent competitor in China’s market for cloud computing, unveiled a new server chip for data centres last month. [L1N2RF03R

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp (1810.HK) unveiled its Surge 1 chip for image processing in phone cameras this year.L4N2LT1A8.

These efforts dovetail with China’s push to boost the domestic semiconductor industry, which has become a key point of tension between Washington and Beijing.

Reporting by Brenda Goh and Josh Horwitz; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.