Tencent Eyes Blockchain Technology With $70 Billion Investment

Published: 27/05/2020 | Last Updated: 22/02/2022

Chinese tech giant Tencent recently confirms that it is planning to invest $70 billion in technology companies. This massive investment will also include blockchain technology, and possibly its own digital currency.

Tencent says that the company is looking to invest into “new infrastructure.” The company is well-known for developing the popular messaging platform WeChat. While WeChat is not exactly a big hit in other regions, it is massively popular in China with billions of users using it for almost anything.

Tencent’s latest announcement comes just a month after China calls on tech companies to start a structural upgrades of its economy. China is looking towards investments in technology, with emphasis on business and cloud software services.

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Massive investment

While Tencent is looking to diversify its investment, the company said that it is focusing on some key industries. The company is looking to invest in sectors like blockchain, data centers, supercomputers, servers, internet of things, quantum computing, and 5G technologies.

Tencent did not confirm how much of the $70 billion will be invested towards blockchain. Nevertheless, word around the community is that the company plans to make a big splash in that particular sector.

This investment strategy comes one month after China’s Blockchain Services Network has been released for commercial use. China has been pursuing the development of blockchain for quite some time now, and it appears that the country is well in the forefront of innovations.

China hopes that its newly created network will serve as the backbone for all technologies that will be used within the country.

With its blockchain infrastructure already in place, China expects massive tech investment towards it. This comes as no surprise why Tencent immediately jumped into the project itself. With billions of dollars on its pocket, the Chinese tech powerhouse is throwing everything it got into blockchain.

Cloud technology

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Tencent confirmed that its cloud business has been severely hurt. However, the company sees an opportunity during this pandemic. Tencent claims that because of the spread of coronavirus, offline industries will begin to migrate their services into the cloud.

This is a great opportunity for Tencent, especially since it is in the forefront of this business. While Alibaba Cloud holds more than 46 percent of China’s cloud market, Tencent is well within second place. Tencent Cloud controls 18 percent of China’s cloud market.

Tencent is not the only tech company that sees the future of cloud. China’s biggest tech company, Alibaba, is already making headways in this particular sector. In April, Alibaba confirms that it is investment more than 200 billion yuan towards the development of its cloud infrastructure within the next three years.

With China’s strict regulations towards foreign companies, market experts agree that Tencent and other Chinese tech giants will have biggest benefit of this recent tech boom. Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are still unable to penetrate the Chinese market. While this might be bad for competition, it simply goes to show how committed China is to nurturing its own local companies.