Image: Aly Song/Reuters
Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings will invest 500-billion yuan (about R1.2-trillion) over the next five years in technology infrastructure including cloud computing, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, the company said on Tuesday.
The announcement comes after call by Beijing last month for a tech-driven structural upgrade of the world’s second largest economy through investment in “new infrastructure” and a boom in demand for business software and cloud services.
Expediting the ‘new infrastructure’ strategy will help further cement virus containment success
Tencent, which is 31.2% owned by South Africa’s Naspers, is best known for its WeChat messaging app and a range of popular games but is aiming to expand into business services as consumer Internet growth slows and companies shift number-crunching from their own computers to the cloud.
Tencent has said while cloud businesses suffered amid the Covid-19 outbreak it expected to see accelerated cloud services and enterprise software adoption from offline industries and public sectors over the longer term.
18% share
“Expediting the ‘new infrastructure’ strategy will help further cement virus containment success,” Guangming Daily quoted Tong as saying.
