Tencent Launches New AI Image Model to Compete with China’s Tech Giants
Tencent Holdings has launched Hy Image 3.5 Preview, its latest image-generation model, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to strengthen its position in the increasingly competitive artificial intelligence market.
The company said on Tuesday that the new model delivers improved performance compared with its previous version and is being integrated into several Tencent products, including its Yuanbao AI chatbot, as well as film-editing and design tools.
The launch comes as Tencent expands its AI capabilities beyond text-based applications and works toward integrating AI across the WeChat ecosystem, which serves more than one billion users.
Tencent said Hy Image 3.5 Preview was tested by hundreds of designers within the company and demonstrated performance comparable to ByteDance’s Seedream 5.0 Pro. The company also said the model slightly outperformed Google’s Nano Banana Pro and Alibaba’s Qwen-Image-3.0 Pro in its internal evaluations, although it did not provide detailed performance data.
The new model could support thousands of designers and artists working across Tencent’s gaming business, particularly in image creation and visual content production.
Tencent has also been strengthening its AI research team by recruiting experienced researchers from leading global AI companies. Former OpenAI researcher Yao Shunyu currently serves as Tencent’s chief AI scientist, while former OpenAI computer vision researcher Tian Yonglong joined the company in July to lead the development of vision and language models within its Hunyuan team.
The launch highlights Tencent’s efforts to accelerate AI development and narrow the gap with leading Chinese technology companies such as ByteDance and Alibaba, while leveraging its extensive digital ecosystem to expand the practical use of AI.