Tencent reported H1 2026 revenue of $56.1 billion, up 10%, and gross profit of $32.1 billion, up 12%. But free cash flow turned negative at -$1.9 billion, largely because of AI infrastructure spending for Hunyuan, WorkBuddy and cloud customers. Excluding prepayments for computing capacity, FCF would have been $5.3 billion.

President Martin Lau said Tencent is trying to build a large, profitable, cash-generating AI-native business: use computing resources first for models and applications, then rent out excess capacity through Tencent Cloud. In a worst-case scenario, he said, Tencent could still recover its infrastructure costs through cloud leasing.