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The
announcement comes after call by Beijing last month for a
tech-driven structural upgrade of the world's second-largest
economy through investment in "new infrastructure" and a boom in
demand for business software and cloud services.
Other key sectors of the investment include blockchain, servers,
big data centres, supercomputer centres, internet of things
operating systems, 5G networks and quantum computing, Dowson
Tong, senior executive vice president of Tencent, told state
media in an interview.
Tencent is best-known for its WeChat messaging app and a range
of popular games but is aiming to expand into business services
as consumer internet growth slows and companies shift
number-crunching from their own computers to the cloud.
Tencent shares were 2.5% higher following the announcement.
Tencent has said while cloud businesses suffered amid the
COVID-19 outbreak it expected to see accelerated cloud services
and enterprise software adoption from offline industries and
public sectors over the longer term.
"Expediting the 'new infrastructure' strategy will help further
cement virus containment success," Guangming Daily quoted Tong
as saying.
Tencent Cloud had 18% of China's cloud market in the fourth
quarter, trailing Alibaba Group Holding Ltd <BABA.N> which
commanded 46.4%, according to research firm Canalys.
Alibaba said last month it would invest 200 billion yuan in its
cloud infrastructure over three years.
(Reporting by Pei Li; Editing by David Clarke)
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