Tencent says it could make instant profits on $53B hardware splurge by renting it for AI workloads

Chinese tech giant Tencent has turned its back on instant profits, betting that a new business unit that creates its own AI and embeds that in its products will pay off to a greater extent than cashing in on demand for computing resources. During the company’s Q2 earnings call yesterday, Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu asked when Tencent expects to see a return on investment from the $53 billion capital expenditure it made in the quarter. Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell said demand for compute resources is so strong that Tencent could recover its depreciation costs “almost immediately” if it rented its infrastructure. Company president Martin Lau said if Tencent behaved like a neocloud it would “achieve a decent return in an...

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