In the latest installment of Tencent Innovates, we highlight solutions in the realms of healthcare, the workplace, software development, the auto industry, and gaming.

Since 2018, we have invested over US$42.9 billion in research and development, with US$2.4 billion in Q1 of 2024 alone. AI is front and center in the latest breakthroughs driving digital transformations that benefit business and consumers. Spanning industries and sectors, these innovations are making it easier to communicate, collaborate, hear, code, detect disease, and create amazing games.

Read on for recent highlights.

Innovating for society

1. A one-stop platform improves patient-care coordination

Healthcare often involves appointments with disparate medical professionals. To facilitate improved patient management and information exchange, Tencent has released a one-stop video and audio solution for these scenarios.

It seamlessly integrates voice calls, online text and images, and audio-video into a unified, multichannel and multi-touchpoint communication platform that supports livestreaming, recording, and remote consultations.

By making it easier for health professionals to communicate with patients remotely, the solution can help save the time and improve the efficiency of medical resources.

2. Medical-imaging AI helps doctors diagnose

AI models are already showing utility in clinical situations such as helping medical institutions analyze diagnostic images. To widen access and benefits, we have collaborated on an open innovation platform for next-gen AI to be used in medical imaging. 

The platform supports the complete R&D process of medical AI, including storage, statistics, labeling, AI model training, and validation of medical imaging data. In particular:

• It supports data annotations for 10 different diseases and provides services to over 4,000 research institutions and users, with more than 70,000 cases annotated; and
• We’ve built a standardized and shared medical imaging database with more than 12,000 cases covering 13 different diseases.

The platform has passed research phase and been approved for hospital settings in China, helping doctors better diagnose and treat patients.

3. People with hearing aids can get tune-ups remotely

Going to the doctor can be a time-consuming hassle. Tencent Meeting has new features that reduce in-person appointments for people who need a hearing test or a hearing-device adjustment. Audiologists can now conduct more of those tests and adjustments remotely, which means less time in traffic and waiting rooms.

In addition, Tencent Meeting has opened its remote hearing platform to all hearing aid manufacturers. With free access to the platform’s protocols and Tencent Meeting’s remote hearing-device adjustment features, they can better help users with fittings and adjustments.

Innovating for business

4. AI coding assistants help software developers

Code is the foundation of our digital world, enabling daily basics like online banking and shopping, as well as the smooth operation of health and logistics systems.

Tencent Cloud’s AI Coding Assistant is a developer and programmer’s new friend, making it faster to write and fix coding. Based on our Hunyuan proprietary large foundation model, AI Coding Assistant provides bug analysis, code explanation, intelligent code completion, and real-time coding assistance.

At Tencent alone, more than half our programmers use the coding assistant, with a productivity gain of 40 percent. Anyone interested or involved in coding could benefit, from students learning programming to software developers and tech companies big and small.

5. Enhanced speaker recognition makes virtual meetings sound great

Modern office life is full of virtual meetings, but poor audio quality can put a damper on communication.

Tencent Ethereal Audio inside 3.0 addresses the issue with features like 16 mic multimodal portrait segmentation. This uses multiple microphones — 16 of them — to pick up sound clearly and work out who’s who. In addition, a multiperson split screen shows each participant in individual tiles, so it’s straightforward to identify who’s talking.

Whether for corporate teams, remote educators, or online events, the upgrade means better engagement. Optimal sound and visuals help everyone, including people who might have trouble hearing or seeing, to be part of the conversation.

6. Workplace collaboration gets more seamless with Tencent Hunyuan

Good communication and collaboration is essential for any company. The enhancement of smart features on our everyday SaaS productivity offerings such as WeCom, Tencent Meeting and Tencent Docs smoothes out the wrinkles. All of our SaaS products have fully integrated Tencent's Hunyuan foundation model.

Increased capabilities in Hunyuan involve an expansion to a trillion-level parameter scale and the adoption of mixture of experts (MoE) architecture. This makes it particularly adept at handling complex and multi-task scenarios. Chinese language processing gets a particular boost, with a businesses from SMEs to large corporations benefiting.

7. Smart mobility LLM put car makers in the fast lane

Tencent launched AI driven, mobility-industry dedicated large model solutions, serving the entire value chain. The technology offers a comprehensive suite of tools that span model creation, computing power, AI engineering platforms and AI application development. It focuses on five key areas: automotive research and development; manufacturing; marketing; customer service; and business collaboration.

In addition, solutions for connected vehicle cloud, smart cockpit and international compatibility have been upgraded. Currently, Tencent provides cloud services to over 100 automotive and mobility technology companies, with more than 30 using Tencent Cloud International's services for global operations.

Innovating for consumers

8. Game AI engines spark new worlds

Developing complex worlds has historically taken time and resources.

GiiNEX, our new game AI engine, changes that. A one-stop game development solution, it incorporates generative AI technology that helps create everything from incredible sights and sounds to characters and storylines.

For example, GiiNEX speeds up city modeling from five days to just 25 minutes, achieving a hundredfold increase in efficiency. What’s more, it slashes game-testing and simulation time.

With GiiNEX comes vast possibilities to design amazing worlds, limited only by imagination. Game developers and game studios can create more complex and interactive games more efficiently. Players get to enjoy more immersive and impressive game experiences. Win-win.