Tencent, a leading Chinese Internet company, is entering the race to advance AI with a new lab

One of China's leading tech companies is building an AI lab that could soon rival those operated by the likes of Google, Facebook, Baidu, and Amazon. Tencent, based in Shenzhen, in southern China, operates a range of online and mobile services, including the hugely popular social mobile apps WeChat and QQ. The company created its AI lab in April, and it is growing rapidly. Tencent sent a delegation of AI researchers, recruiters, and business representatives to the industry's preeminent event, the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, held in Barcelona, Spain, this week. Tencent's push into AI research reflects a broader shift across China's consumer technology industry toward more fundamental research designed to spur real innovation.