Tencent
Tencent is a publicly listed technology company headquartered in Shenzhen. Founded in 1998, it operates communication, games, content, cloud and financial technology businesses. Co-founder Pony Ma is chairman and chief executive officer. Hunyuan is a model family developed within Tencent.
Company & leadership
- Chairman and CEO
- Ma Huateng (Pony Ma)
- President
- Lau Chi Ping (Martin Lau)
- Legal company
- Tencent Holdings Limited; incorporated in the Cayman Islands
Founders
- Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan and Zeng Liqing
Founding and first products
Tencent began in Shenzhen in November 1998. Its founding team included Pony Ma, Tony Zhang, Daniel Xu, Charles Chen and Jason Zeng. QQ launched in February 1999. The company listed in Hong Kong in June 2004.
Current leadership and governance
Pony Ma leads Tencent as chairman and CEO. Martin Lau is president, and Daniel Xu is co-founder and chief information officer. Tony Zhang, Charles Chen and Jason Zeng are listed as advisors emeritus. Tencent’s management page describes a single board with independent non-executive directors representing more than one-third of its members.
Headquarters and legal structure
The operating headquarters are in Shenzhen. Tencent Holdings Limited is the Cayman-incorporated listed company. Its 2026 shareholder circular identifies a registered office in Grand Cayman and a principal Hong Kong place of business in Wanchai. These legal addresses serve different purposes from the Shenzhen headquarters.
Ownership and dated shareholding information
Tencent has public and institutional shareholders. Its June 2026 corporate-structure document reports ownership as at 31 March 2026: MIH Internet Holdings held 22.79%, Advance Data Services held 8.82%, and other shareholders held 68.39%. It links MIH to Naspers through Prosus and identifies Advance Data Services as wholly owned by Pony Ma. These percentages are a dated filing snapshot, not a claim about today’s holdings.
Business and AI milestones
Tencent launched Weixin in 2011 and Tencent Cloud in 2013. It introduced Hunyuan in September 2023, then launched the Yuanbao AI assistant in May 2024. The group’s AI work now sits alongside its established communication, content and enterprise services.
Model publication and service access
Tencent released Hy4 Preview in August 2026 through downloadable weights, developer APIs and its applications. The model program includes general language models and specialized work in image, video, speech, document parsing and generated worlds. This guide covers major current releases and useful earlier checkpoints. Auxiliary tools, every low-precision format and all research experiments are outside its scope.