Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Yuanbao AI chatbot has overtaken DeepSeek to become the most downloaded iPhone app in China this week, underscoring the country’s intensifying AI competition. The app, powered by Tencent’s Hunyuan AI technology and DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model, reflects surging domestic interest in artificial intelligence. Three of the top five free apps in China are now AI chatbots, including ByteDance’s Doubao.
DeepSeek’s rapid rise has spurred major AI investments, with Alibaba committing $53 billion to the sector. Tencent has also integrated DeepSeek R1 into WeChat’s search function and its hit game Peacekeeper Elite, while launching a Hunyuan Turbo edition, claiming superior speed.
With 1.4 billion WeChat users, Tencent is gaining ground on AI-focused rivals Alibaba and Baidu. However, questions remain over the long-term monetization of AI services, many of which are currently free or open-source.
(By Ziqi Qin)