Will #🇨🇳 ChinA.I. 🤖🧠🦾🤖 adoption be faster than in the West? WeChat, the ubiquitous messaging and social networking app in China, has started integrating DeepSeek’s open-source artificial intelligence model into its search function. Tencent said in a statement that it recently began testing a feature in Weixin, the domestic Chinese version of WeChat, that allows users to access DeepSeek’s model. Tencent also noted that Weixin continues to offer its existing AI search feature powered by Tencent’s own large language model, Hunyuan. The Hunyuan and DeepSeek AI search features are not available to users outside China. Tencent’s use of DeepSeek’s model, first reported by Chinese media outlets, comes after the startup became a global sensation. DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley last month after releasing its latest reasoning model, R1, which achieved performance comparable to OpenAI’s similar model, despite being developed at a much lower cost. Shares of Tencent, which operates WeChat, jumped as much as 7.8% before closing 4% higher Monday in Hong Kong, as investors bought into hopes that the DeepSeek-powered feature would help elevate WeChat’s role as a platform for AI services in China. As of the end of September, Weixin in China and WeChat outside China had more than 1.3 billion monthly active users combined. https://www.reuters.com/t..