Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) shares climbed 6.2% in Hong Kong overnight trade Thursday, while Alibaba (9988.HK) gained 7.4%, after the after-hours U.S. mega-cap technology earnings prints — particularly Microsoft's Azure reacceleration to 35% and Alphabet's 33% Google Cloud growth — reignited the China internet AI-monetization narrative. The Hang Seng Tech Index opened up 4.8%, on pace for the strongest single-session gain in nine weeks.
The renewed bid for Chinese internet names was reinforced by a stable People's Bank of China daily reference rate of 7.04 for the offshore yuan, with the spot CNH consolidating in a tight 7.04-7.06 range. The PBOC has now defended a 7.05 mid-point area for nine consecutive sessions, signalling to global investors that policy makers are committed to currency stability through the second-quarter slowdown — an important factor in foreign-investor-fund mandates that benchmark to MSCI China.
AI Cloud Read-Through
Alibaba Cloud — the cloud subsidiary scheduled to report fiscal-fourth-quarter results May 14 — generated approximately $5.4 billion of revenue in the previous quarter. Citi analyst Alicia Yap raised her FY2026 Alibaba Cloud growth forecast to 22% from 17%, citing "Microsoft, Google and Meta's capex revisions imply a global AI infrastructure cycle that lifts demand for compatible Alibaba Cloud services in Asia ex-Japan." Tencent Cloud was the third-largest mainland China cloud provider in calendar 2025 with approximately $7.8 billion of annualized revenue.
Tencent's WeChat AI assistant — Yuanbao — surpassed 220 million monthly active users in March, according to the company's prior interim disclosure. The Tencent Hunyuan 3.0 large language model, released in February 2026, has been integrated into 14 third-party enterprise applications. JPMorgan analyst Alex Yao called the China internet sector "the cleanest expression of AI monetization at a 14x forward multiple — half the level of the U.S. comparison set."
Broader Asian Tape
The China rally lifted regional sentiment. Baidu (BIDU) ADRs added 5.8% in pre-market, JD.com (