Artificial intelligence isn’t just a buzzword anymore; it’s officially writing half of Tencent’s new code. In its 2025 Tencent R&D Big Data Report, released on October 24 to mark China’s “1024 Programmer Day,” the Chinese tech giant shared some striking numbers that show just how deeply AI has transformed its software development process.
AI Becomes Tencent’s New Developer Partner
According to the report, 50% of newly written code at Tencent now comes from AI assistance, mainly through its in-house AI programming tool, CodeBuddy. Powered by the company’s large language model, HunYuan, CodeBuddy has been widely adopted, and over 90% of Tencent’s engineers now use it daily.
And the results speak for themselves. Tencent says that coding time has dropped by 40%, while overall R&D efficiency has improved by more than 20%. Considering the company’s massive scale, generating around 325 million lines of code every month, handling 370,000 development requests, and running over 25 million builds, these gains translate to an enormous productivity boost.
AI Takes Over Quality Control Too
It’s not just about writing code faster. Tencent has also embedded AI into its quality assurance pipeline. The report notes that AI now participates in 94% of code reviews, effectively serving as an automated first-pass reviewer that flags potential issues before human engineers step in.
This system has been highly effective: AI identifies 28% of code defects, boosting the overall defect detection rate by 44%. In short, AI is helping engineers not only move faster but also deliver cleaner, more reliable software.
Streamlined Workflows with WeDev
A lot of this transformation happens on Tencent’s WeDev platform, which connects the company’s internal R&D tools. The platform handles 80 million data exchanges a day and eliminates over 5 million manual operations each month, boosting automation by 67% year over year. It’s a clear example of how intelligent systems are reducing tedious, repetitive work so developers can focus on more creative and complex tasks.
Real Results Across Business Units
The benefits of AI-powered development are already visible across Tencent’s ecosystem:
The WeChat backend team cut compilation times by 50%.
WeChat Pay shortened its delivery cycle by 31% and improved release quality by 14%.
At Tencent Cloud, 65% of new code was generated by CodeBuddy, with a 31.5% reduction in bugs per thousand lines of code.
These aren’t just incremental improvements; they show a fundamental shift in how large-scale software is built and maintained.
The Bigger Picture
Tencent’s embrace of AI in coding reflects a broader trend that’s reshaping the entire tech industry. As large language models become more capable, AI-assisted development is moving from an experimental tool to an everyday necessity. For Tencent, which employs over 76% of its workforce in R&D, this evolution isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about redefining how humans and machines collaborate to innovate at scale.
In short, Tencent’s report gives us a glimpse into the future of software engineering, one where AI isn’t replacing developers, but empowering them to build faster, cleaner, and smarter than ever before.
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