Chinese internet giant Tencent buys 5% of Tesla

Tencent, Asia’s 2nd very best valued tech firm, has offered a five percent share in Tesla. according to a filing, the chinese language firm scooped up eight,167,544 shares for around $ 1.7 billion to transform one of Tesla’s greatest shareholders.

the acquisition used to be organize on March 17, and people now-Tencent-owned shares are value round $ 2.2 billion. The information itself sent Tesla’s share worth up three p.c in pre-market buying and selling.

Tencent is a prolific investor. It holds fairness in Snap, this 12 months’s hot tech IPO, amongst others following an early investment. whereas that passion in messaging is sensible when you consider that Tencent’s operates China’s dominant chat app — WeChat — it isn’t straight away clear whether or not the Tesla investment has strategic undertones. Others in its portfolio embody Didi Chuxing, China’s largest taxi on-demand service, which is within the course of of buying Uber China and not too long ago launched a U.S.-based totally research lab.

Disclosure of this investment comes after Tencent made a series of bulletins round its synthetic intelligence efforts. The firm poached a senior computer learning researcher from rival Baidu to personnel its China-based totally AI analysis lab. It additionally printed that its had defeat a excessive-rating jap Go player in its latest battle with a human player. Google’s AlphaGo, after all, made headlines when it defeated an ex world champion of the traditional Asia strategy game last year.

in different places, Tencent last week led a $ 350 million investment in widespread photograph sharing and video streaming app Kuaishou, which we previously said is aiming to head public in the U.S. as soon as this year.

Tencent just had a report year of earnings growth after it reported complete sales of $ 21.9 billion for 2016. That determine used to be up forty eight p.c, representing the corporate’s very best earnings bounce due to the fact that 2012. web revenue for the yr increased by way of forty three percent to achieve $ 5.9 billion.

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