Published on: February 17, 2025 / update from: February 17, 2025 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein
Integration of Deepseek Ai in Tencents Weixin or Wechat and the China search engine from Baidu - Image: Xpert.digital
Tencent & Baidu: The next big step in the global AI competition arena
Deepseek-Ki occurs: Change in China's technology landscape 2025
The integration of Deepseek-Ki models in Tencents in Weixin and Baidus search platforms represents a turning point in China's AI landscape. This development, which was announced in February 2025, shows the quick takeover of advanced AI technologies by leading Chinese technology companies in order to allow user experiences Improve, to be able to rationalize processes and compete globally. By using the cost -effective and powerful models from Deepseek, Tencent and Baidu want to consolidate their position in the domestic market and at the same time challenge international competitors such as Openaai and Google. This step has already triggered significant reactions to the stock markets and changed the image of Chinese AI capabilities.
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Tencents Strategic Integration of Deepseek in Weixin
Beta test and user access
Tencent's decision to integrate Deepseek-R1 in Weixin-China's largest messaging app with over 1.38 billion combined users (including Wechat)-marks a strategic departure on its dependence on proprietary models such as Hunyuan. The beta test phase, which started on February 16, 2025, enables selected users access Deepseek's AI-based search via a special "AI search" option within the app. This function, which is currently only available inland users, offers free access to the complete functions of deepseek-R1, including multimodal input/output support and advanced conclusions.
Weixin and Wechat are basically the same, but there is a small difference in their use:
- Weixin is the version of Wechat, which was specially designed for the Chinese market. It is aimed at users in China and is closely linked to the Chinese ecosystem and the Chinese regulations.
- Wechat is the international version of Weixin. This version is intended for users outside of China and has some restrictions compared to Weixin, for example less integrated functions that are important in China (such as Wechat Pay for everyday life in China).
Although the two names are often used synonymously, they differ technically with the range of functions, language and regional orientation.
Transition from Hunyuan to Deepseek
While Tencents Hunyuan model previously drove the AI functions of Weixin, the integration of deepseek reflects a calculated change to third-party solutions that offer superior cost efficiency. Deepseek-R1, which was published on January 20, 2025, supplies a performance that is comparable to Openais GPT-4, but to a fraction of the training costs, which makes it an attractive alternative for scaling of AI services. However, Hunyuan is still used in areas that require local data processing.
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Extended integration into the ecosystem
Tencent plans to expand the integration of deepseek beyond search functions. The company examines possible uses in Tencent Cloud Ai Code Assistant and its AI assistant app Yuanbao, which indicates ambitions, anchor Deepseek in its entire product range. This is in accordance with industry developments, in which AI models are increasingly used as basic tools to increase productivity and user loyalty.
Baidus dual strategy: Deepseek and Ernie
Improvement of the search with hybrid AI models
Baidus approach combines Deepseek-R1 with its own Ernie model to create a hybrid search architecture. The integration announced on February 16, 2025 aims to provide “expert -like” answers by merging deepseek's planning skills with Ernie's contextual understanding. Users of Baidu Search and the Wenxin Smart Agent platform now receive answers that are enriched by both models, which enables nuanced processing of complex queries, such as: B. Multimodal inputs (e.g. pictures in combination with text).
Open source ambitions and market positioning
Baidus announcement to make the Ernie 4.5 series by June 30, 2025 open source adds another level to its strategy. While CEO Robin Li Li Open-Source models has historically criticized because of its commercial restrictions, the decision reflects a pragmatic adaptation to Deepseek's Open-Source-with-License, which accelerated the takeover of the technology. The opening of Ernie strives to promote developer communities and to compensate for the growing weight of Deepseek.
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The AI race: China's quick takeover of Deepseek
Interdisciplinary use
The adoption of Deepseek-R1 extends far beyond Tencent and Baidu. Telecommunications giants such as China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have integrated the model into customer service systems, while automotive manufacturers such as BYD and Great Wall Motor use it for simulations in the field of autonomous driving. Financial institutes and smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei and Oppo use Deepseek for AI assistants and predictive analysis.
Competition with US ACI companies
The quick takeover of Deepseek has tightened the tensions between the USA and China in the field of AI development. The publication of Deepseek-R1 led to a sale of global tech shares on January 27, 2025, since investors re-evaluated their expectations of western AI dominance. Analysts find that the open source frame from Deepseek and the cost advantages (allegedly 80 % more cheaply train than GPT-4) Chinese companies offer a scalable alternative to restricted US technologies.
Market reactions and investments
Course increase at Tencent
Tencent's shares on February 17, 2025 rose by 6.6 % to a 3.5-year high of $ 512, since investors welcomed the integration of Deepseek. Analysts from Jefferies emphasized Weixin's potential to develop into a "AI super app", based on its huge user base and daily engagement metrics. The price increase of 42 % in 2024 underlines the trust of investors in Tencents AI-driven growth strategy.
Effects on Chinese technology values
The Outperformance of the AI sector can be seen in a previous annual profit of 15 % in AI-related Chinese stocks, which exceeds the MSCI China Index by 9 %. Companies such as Netease and BYD, which Deepseek introduced early, received increased analyst reviews, whereby JD.com was identified as the largest winner.
Future views and strategic considerations
Technological convergence and data protection
The integration of AI models such as Deepseek into everyday apps accuses data protection concerns. Tencent has made it clear that Weixin's AI search does not access personal data such as chat history or moments posts. However, since AI is increasingly embedded in financial and telecommunications services, the regulatory examination of data use is expected to increase.
Open source vs. proprietary models
The coexistence of open source (deepseek) and proprietary (Ernie, Hunyuan) models in China's AI ecosystem reflects a nuanced approach. While open source innovation and adoption accelerates, proprietary models keep their value for niche applications with specialized data.
The integration of Deepseek in Tencents Weixin and Baidus platforms marks a turning point in China's AI development. By combining third-party and proprietary systems, these companies achieve unprecedented scalability and user loyalty. The strategic implications extend beyond the domestic market and question the US AI preocestational.
The integration of the deepseek ki models in Tencents Weixin-app marks a significant change in the AI-supported search and user interaction. This analysis illuminates the competitive advantages of Deepseek, its specific functions in Weixin, effects on the user experience, data protection concerns and tencents comprehensive integration strategy.
Technological advantages and efficiency
Deepseek-R1 is based on a mixture-of expert (MOE) architecture, in which only 37 billion of the total of 671 billion parameters are activated per task. This leads to 98 % lower operating costs compared to Chatgpt-4 and enables impressive savings: the processing of 1 million tokens costs $ 0.42 (Deepseek) in contrast to $ 180 (GPT-4 turbo). This efficiency is achieved through optimized hardware use and open source licensing (with) that offers companies additional flexibility.
In Benchmarks, Deepseek exceeds GPT-4 in technical tasks, such as mathematical thinking (90.2 % vs. 74.6 % in Math-500) and multilingual support (86.5 % vs. 76.0 % in C-Eval) . At the same time, it offers a multimodal understanding (text, images, videos) and improves context accuracy by 40 % compared to keyword-based systems. In creative tasks, however, GPT-4 remains superior with a 12 % higher benchmark result.
Integration into the Weixin app
Deepseek is integrated in Weixin as a dedicated "AI search" and allows multimodal queries, such as the combination of text with images from Weixin moments for creating travel routes. It offers real-time summary from articles of official accounts, whereby the reading time is reduced by up to 70 %. Personalization takes into account user behavior in order to display prioritized results from verified pages such as Tencent News.
Further integrations are the link with Weixin Pay for context-related shopping recommendations, the use of localized data processing for regional dialects and the connection with mini programs to solve tasks, such as the proposal of meeting locations based on previous locations. In Weixin Work automated Deepseek summaries of meetings and creates compliance reports, which allows teams to save around 15 hours a week. The function also analyzes trend topics and suggests optimal publication times, which increases the interaction by 35 %.
The "Deep Thinking" mode makes it possible to process complex queries with extended context windows (up to 128,000 tokens).
68 % unsuspecting: Tencents Transparency dashboard and the user challenge
Deepseek stores all Weixin user data on Alibaba cloud servers in Hangzhou to meet the requirements of the Chinese cybersecurity law (Article 37). At the same time, third-party SDKs (e.g. bytedance, Google Analytics) use device IDs and location data what has triggered data protection examinations, especially in the EU.
On February 6, 2025, Deepseek was banned in Italy due to a lack of protective measures against possible data requirements of the KPCH in Italy. Tencent has introduced a transparency dashboard, but 68 % of the users are not familiar with this function.
Distribution and future applications
Due to its cost effectiveness, Deepseek prevailed in 83 % of Chinese technology companies and is used, for example, by Huawei, BYD and China Mobile for applications such as simulations of autonomous driving or automation of the customer service. Future projects include integration in the areas of autonomous driving (BYD, 2026) and healthcare (pilot project with Wedoctor).
The integration of Deepseek positions Tencent as a pioneer for AI solutions in China. The combination of low operating costs, multimodality and localized processing raises the user experience in Weixin to a new level, while data protection and regulatory challenges in western markets represent significant hurdles.
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