Tencent Earmarks $70 Billion to Fortify China’s Digital Power

In an announcement on WeChat, Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings says the company is pouring $70 billion over the next five years into critical digital infrastructure to position Beijing as the world leader in several emerging technologies: cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and the Internet of Things.

Tencent is the developer of WeChat, China’s biggest social media, messaging and payment app with over a billion users. The company’s allocation will also target advances in supercomputers, data centers and 5G mobile networks.

The digital infrastructure program aims to deploy a new network of large-scale data centers across China, with a million servers deployed at each site, reports South China Morning Post.

Tencent is a key player in China’s recovery plan following the disruption and widespread economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to China’s Gov­ern­ment Work Re­port, released at its 2020 Two Ses­sions con­gres­sional meet­ing on May 22nd, the country is planning to build  “new in­fra­struc­ture” that will “in­ject dig­i­tal vi­tal­ity into in­dus­trial de­vel­op­ment and con­tin­u­ally un­leash eco­nomic growth po­ten­tial”, reports China Banking News.

At the congressional meeting, Tencent CEO Pony Ma reportedly submitted several bills in connection with the comprehensive tech developments.

According to The China Acad­emy of In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­ogy, developments in the digital economy, 5G net­works and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence will drive several trillion yuan in economic output over the next five years.

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