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Tencent Holdings Ltd. unveiled an upgraded AI reasoning model, the latest bid by China\u2019s most valuable company to compete for leadership in the country\u2019s crowded artificial intelligence<\/a> field.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Shenzhen-based company rolled out the latest iteration of Hunyuan T1, which debuted last month in its chatbot app Yuanbao. T1 operates similarly to DeepSeek\u2019s R1, the model that stunned Silicon Valley by matching the best from OpenAI<\/a> and Meta Platforms Inc. at a fraction of the cost and computing power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A team of Tencent engineers claimed in an event streamed online that the new model has cutting-edge logic and writing capabilities, with few hallucinations or distortions. T1\u2019s performance is on par with state-of-art models including R1 and OpenAI\u2019s o1, they said, citing industry benchmarks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tencent has joined Chinese tech peers including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc. to piggyback on DeepSeek\u2019s success to win new users. Baidu last week rolled out a reasoning model, which it says delivers performance on par with R1 at only half of the price, after having introduced DeepSeek\u2019s model in its own search engine and maps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Alibaba\u2019s shares have surged 60% this year as the e-commerce pioneer pivoted toward AI, winning recognition for its open-source Qwen models. The company is also working with Apple Inc. to incorporate its AI technology to iPhones in China<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n