Tencent Holdings Limited

Tencent Holdings Limited is a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in 1998, specializing in various internet-related services and products, including social media, entertainment, and technology. The company is the world's largest video game vendor and one of the largest companies globally by market capitalization. Tencent's services encompass social networks, music, web portals, e-commerce, mobile games, internet services, payment systems, smartphones, and multiplayer online games. It operates the instant messengers Tencent QQ and WeChat, along with the news site QQ.com. Tencent has stakes in over 600 companies and began focusing on tech start-ups in Asia in 2017. Its valuation approached US$1 trillion in January 2021 before it experienced a decline. Tencent Holdings was ranked 35th on the 2023 Forbes Global 2000 list. The company has been investing heavily in recent years to acquire gaming assets worldwide, including a 25% stake in Ubisoft Entertainment's new gaming subsidiary in 2025. It also increased its interest in the parent company of the game maker, FromSoftware, in early 2025 to nearly 8%. Tencent has also been investing heavily in business technologies, like cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain. The company unveiled plans to invest $70 billion into new technology and infrastructure in the coming years. It has made several investments in innovative technology companies, including AI chip start-up Enflame and Zhipu, which aims to take on OpenAI. The company wants to be a top-tier AI company and launched its Hunyuan AI model in 2023. Its AI investment strategy started paying off in early 2025 by driving strong revenue growth, especially for AI-powered ad targeting and creation. Given its increasing focus on AI, it wouldn't be surprising to see Tencent invest in more AI start-ups. Finally, Tencent will likely continue diversifying its portfolio by investing in new growth sectors. For example, it has invested in more healthcare start-ups in recent years, including Chinese stem cell therapy developer Bioon. Given China's aging population, healthcare will become an important growth sector for the country and likely for Tencent.