China's Tencent to unveil AI chatbot after Beijing clears hurdles (updated)

Melco International Development

06/09/2023 03:46

(Adds background in paragraphs 4 and 5, shares in 6)
    By Josh Ye
       HONG KONG, Sept 6 (Reuters) - China's internet giant
Tencent Holdings  0700.HK  said that it will unveil an
artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on Thursday, according to a
social media post it published on Wednesday.
    The post featured a demo conversation a user had with the AI
chatbot, which helped the user write promotional materials. 
    It comes after China started to approve AI chatbots for
public release last month. Other big tech companies in China
including Baidu Inc  9888.HK  and SenseTime Group  0200.HK 
released their AI chatbots last week. 
    Tencent has been developing its own AI model named "Hunyuan"
for months and the company said last month that it was expanding
the test of the model internally. 
    Reuters reported in February that the company formed a team
to develop a ChatGPT-like chatbot named "HunyuanAide" at the
time. 
    Tencent's shares were down around 1% on Wednesday, lagging a
0.5% drop in the broader market. 
        
  

 (Reporting by Josh Ye; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
 ((Josh.Ye@thomsonreuters.com;))