Tencent and Partners Form Alliance to Reduce Carbon Emissions

Tencent and a group of key industry players jointly announced that they will form the Carbon-Neutrality Professional Committee and Global Carbon Neutral Technology Alliance to help break down technological barriers to addressing the climate crisis.

As part of the new alliance, the companies pledged to disclose 189 carbon neutrality related patents and technologies for free, with the aim of helping China achieve the goal of carbon peaking in 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

The alliance was formed during the Carbon Neutral Patent Technology and Application Sub-Forum of the China Industrial Internet Summit that was held in Jiangmen, Guangdong on August 23, 2022.

The alliance will be led by Tencent and include a public-interest patent pool with nine other leading enterprises including Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com, Kuaishou, Ant Group, Meituan, Vanke, and Willfar Information Tech.

The patents will be free of charge to organizations advancing carbon neutrality and may not be used for commercial purposes under any circumstances.

The patents cover technologies designed to advance energy savings and efficiencies through various software and hardware solutions.

They include optimization algorithms, storage and network resources, data centers, energy monitoring, energy conservation, and reducing emissions in transportation and buildings.

"It is becoming imminent for us to address the climate change and facilitate the transition into low-carbon economy," said Xu Hao, head of Tencent's Carbon Neutrality Lab. "We at Tencent hope to help the traditional industries and those with relatively high carbon emissions, such as steel, cement, electricity, and chemicals, to move to a low-carbon model through our digital capabilities. Digitalization can significantly improve the production efficiency of these companies, which consequentially could boost energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."