Exclusive | Tencent counts on AI boom, video gaming power to lift cloud business overseas
The tech giant sees growing demand from both Chinese and foreign clients to use its services abroad, Tencent Cloud CEO Dowson Tong says
While Tencent is among the top three cloud computing service providers in China, it remains a relatively smaller player in the global market. But as Tencent’s domestic clients venture abroad, many are expressing interest in using the Shenzhen-based giant’s technologies overseas, according to Dowson Tong, CEO of Tencent’s Cloud and Smart Industries Group.
“With the trend of [artificial intelligence-generated content] in recent years, we have done a lot of implementations on the mainland, and now the products have gotten more mature, we feel very comfortable [bringing them to overseas markets],” Tong said in an exclusive interview with the Post on Wednesday.
One technology that the company sees substantial interest in is AI-generated digital humans, which leverage technologies such as 3D modelling that have already been widely used in Tencent’s video game production. A good number of enterprise clients in the Asian market have already deployed digital humans as news anchors, customer service agents and sales representatives, according to Tong.
Some of Tencent’s Chinese customers are planning to use the company’s cloud service to cater to Chinese tourists and Mandarin-speaking communities in global markets, he said.
Outside China, Tencent competes against global players, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, which together hold over half of the world’s cloud infrastructure services market, according to data from analytics firm Canalys.
