APTnovel Chapter 489 Tencent
Chapter 489 Tencent
Kuaishou's official response came faster and more directly than expected.
Less than three hours after Zhang Yifan sent the email, Lu Ran received a preliminary cooperation agreement from the other party's legal department on his mobile phone.
Zhang Yifan was so efficient that he had already stamped the official seal in the meeting room and was just waiting for the administration to print it.
Lu Ran sat in his office and read through the entire agreement from beginning to end.
The key terms were basically the same as what he had discussed with Zhang Yifan. The only variable was that the other party had set a very tight timeframe for the AI engine integration, requiring all modules to be launched and tested within three months. If this was not achieved by the deadline, TUTU would have to bear the corresponding maintenance compensation.
This timeframe isn't very generous, but it's not impossible either.
Lu Ran marked the milestone in the memo and sent another message to Zhao Yiming, asking him to take some time next week to schedule the integration with Kuaishou and Douyin, prioritizing the deployment of the core recommendation optimization module.
Zhao Yiming's reply was as concise as a telegram: "Okay. I'll send it to you when it's done."
Lu Ran put the agreement into a special folder and replied to Chen Mo: "It's finalized with Kuaishou and Douyin. Contact the liaisons at JD.com and Ele.me to let them know that we've completed the process with Kuaishou and Douyin."
Chen Mo replied with "Understood," and added, "Once they find out, their own pace of progress should accelerate. While JD.com and Ele.me were initially positive about the equity swap, the internal procedures were progressing slowly. Now that they see Kuaishou and Douyin have signed, they'll feel they'll fall behind if they don't."
Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and stared out the window at the Shanghai sky in March for a while.
The weather is starting to warm up, and the dryness and chill that are unique to winter are gradually being diluted by the spring breeze.
A faint green tinge appeared on the tips of the sycamore trees in the distance; if you didn't look closely, you might mistake it for the color of sunlight shining through.
After reaching an agreement with Kuaishou and Douyin, his biggest gaps were filled.
JD.com solved the entry point for the shopping scenario. Ele.me solved the entry point for the food delivery scenario.
Kuaishou and Douyin solved the entry point for entertainment scenarios.
In addition to its own user community, esports system, and overseas business, TUTU Technology now holds a traffic network covering four high-frequency scenarios: gaming, shopping, food delivery, and entertainment.
If Tencent wants to suppress TUTU by blocking its access points, it would have to block the interfaces of at least these four companies simultaneously.
It's easy to run one business, but difficult to run four.
It's even harder to manage four companies without getting users to complain.
Lu Ran felt that his side's defenses were almost complete.
The necessary channels have been established, the necessary partnerships have been signed, and the necessary backup plans have been prepared.
Even if Tencent makes new moves, it won't be able to break through this network in the short term.
All that's left is to wait, wait for Tencent to reveal its weaknesses, wait for the synergistic effects between its partners to gradually emerge, and wait for its true trump card—the AI engine—to produce even more impressive data in more scenarios.
He opened his notebook and wrote a line at the end of the page for that day: "Defense complete. Entering a wait-and-see period."
After finishing writing, he closed the notebook, stood up, and stretched his neck.
My cervical spine made two cracking sounds. I've been too tense lately, and my body really can't take it anymore.
He decided to leave work a little earlier today, go home, have a good meal, and catch up on some sleep.
But what Lu Ran didn't know was that just as he put the last piece of the puzzle into place, things were already in an uproar at Tencent headquarters.
Shenzhen, the top floor of Tencent Building.
This meeting room, which can seat twenty people, is more full than usual today.
Almost every seat on both sides of the long table was occupied, and even the gallery against the wall had several young people wearing name tags from various departments.
The air conditioner was on full blast, but there was still a subtle, oppressive heat in the air, like the calm before a pot of water boils.
At the end of the long table, Vice President Liu, the board representative, sat in his seat with a printed document spread out in front of him.
He didn't look at the materials; his gaze fell on the faces of the people opposite him, scanning them back and forth as if to confirm that everyone was present.
The person sitting to his left was still the deputy director of the strategic investment department, still wearing the same thin-rimmed glasses and the same meticulously buttoned shirt, but today his expression was noticeably more somber than during the last meeting.
To my right is the head of the legal department, with a cup of tea that has gone cold next to him. He took a sip and put it down.
Vice President Liu turned a page of the documents in front of him and then spoke. His voice wasn't loud, but the noise in the conference room vanished the moment he uttered his first word: "Let me explain the situation first. In the past two weeks, TUTU has reached equity swap and strategic cooperation agreements with JD.com, Ele.me, and Kuaishou/Douyin respectively. We've obtained the specific percentages and terms; although not all the details, the general framework is clear. With JD.com, it's a share swap of slightly over 3% plus an AI supply chain optimization plan. Ele.me has a similar structure, while Kuaishou/Douyin's percentage is higher, involving technical cooperation on recommendation algorithms and mutual traffic redirection."
He put down the materials in his hand and glanced around: "The problem now is that in less than a month, TUTU has tied all three of the most valuable platforms outside of the Tencent ecosystem to its side. JD.com's shopping, Ele.me's food delivery, and Kuaishou and Douyin's short videos—the three most frequently accessed scenarios—have become their allies overnight. All our previous strategic judgments were based on the premise that 'TUTU couldn't find alternative entry points for the time being.' Now that premise no longer holds."
The meeting room fell silent for a moment.
Then the deputy director with thin-rimmed glasses spoke first, his speech noticeably faster than usual: "Mr. Liu, I'd like to add something. When TUTU was negotiating with these companies, their core bargaining chip wasn't the game product, but an AI technology solution whose specific architecture we still don't fully understand. Based on our current information, this solution has already generated verifiable data in three areas: supply chain optimization, delivery scheduling, and improved recommendation algorithm efficiency. The reason JD.com and Ele.me were willing to accept the equity swap wasn't because they lacked game content, but because this AI solution could indeed help them reduce costs and increase efficiency. Kuaishou and Douyin were even more direct—their existing recommendation systems were already at a very high level, and TUTU could push them up by another one or two percentage points. This incremental increase would mean hundreds of millions in revenue for Kuaishou and Douyin. So the key issue isn't which companies TUTU has courted, but rather what exactly their AI solution is, where it came from, and how significant its technological barriers are."
His words were like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples spreading outwards in concentric circles. The head of the legal department immediately followed up: "We contacted several external technical consulting firms for preliminary assessments, but none of them can give a definitive judgment. They have too little publicly available information and can only speculate based on scattered descriptions leaked from JD.com and Ele.me. Some say TUTU uses a completely new underlying algorithm framework, unlike any publicly available machine learning system; others say it might be an extension of some kind of automatic code generation technology, but there's no empirical support. The most outrageous claim is that TUTU may have developed some kind of self-iterable code generation system, with each iteration achieving execution efficiency closer to natural language than the last."
Upon hearing this speculation, someone in the conference room let out a soft gasp.
Even the head of the legal department shook his head: "When I first heard it, it sounded like science fiction. But the question is, if it's not in this direction, how did TUTU manage to get a company like Kuaishou and Douyin to give up over ten percent of their shares in exchange for their technology? Kuaishou and Douyin's decision-makers aren't stupid. We've dealt with Zhang Yifan a few times; his judgment of technological value is top-notch in the industry. A technical solution that could get him to approve and sign an agreement within a month couldn't possibly be something already on the market."
Vice President Liu remained silent.
After the head of the legal department finished speaking, he turned to look at the head of the game division, who had been silent all along: "Have you noticed any changes in the recruitment direction of the TUTU technical team recently?"
The head of the game division was a man in his early fifties with gray hair and reading glasses. He always adjusted his glasses before speaking: "There's been a change. TUTU's recruitment direction for technical positions has shifted significantly in the last three months. Previously, they mostly recruited for standard positions in traditional game companies, such as game engine development, client engineers, and server maintenance. But since the beginning of this year, they've added several previously unseen areas to their technical job postings—natural language processing, semantic understanding models, automated code generation, and multimodal data fusion. The job requirements for these positions are very detailed, not just vague 'understanding AI technology,' but specific descriptions like 'familiar with multi-layer attention mechanism architecture' and 'experience in independently training NLP models.' When I saw it, I felt something was off, but I didn't think about it too deeply. Looking back now, they were already quietly laying the groundwork back then."
The deputy director added, "So TUTU's AI solution wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision; they'd been laying the groundwork for it for at least six months. And their secrecy was impeccable. We didn't plant anyone within TUTU, and the outside world has absolutely no idea about the specific technical details of this solution. Even the people from JD.com and Ele.me who were working with us couldn't explain the technical details of the TUTU AI engine clearly, only knowing that 'the results are indeed good.'"
At the end of the conference table, a young woman's voice, which had been silent until now, interjected. Her voice was soft, but everyone could hear her: "Then let me ask a more direct question—if TUTU's AI technology is really as powerful as they've demonstrated, will they apply it to their own game products? If their game development efficiency becomes three, five, or even ten times faster than it is now, will our existing self-developed projects be able to keep up?"
There was a moment of silence in the conference room.
The question was like a needle pricking the air; it made no sharp sound, but everyone could feel its presence.
Vice President Liu finally spoke. His pace hadn't quickened, but each word carried more weight than before: "So the current situation is—TUTU, in less than a month, using a technical solution we completely don't understand, has lured JD.com, Ele.me, and Kuaishou—the three most valuable entry-point platforms—to their side. All our previous 'entry-blocking' strategies now have to be at least discounted. We can't answer any of these questions right now: what level of capability their AI technology can achieve, how high the technological barriers are, or whether it will be applied to more fields in the future."
He closed the document in front of him, his gaze fixed on a spot on the table, without looking at anyone: "By next Tuesday, I need a complete TUTUAI technology evaluation report. Not a speculative report like 'it might be,' but a list of all the information I can find, clearly categorized by credibility. Also—I need someone to check if there's been any information leak within TUTU regarding the development process of that AI technology, whether the technical team was brought in from outside, whether they've collaborated with any universities or research institutions, and whether there are any verifiable patent records. If we can get even half of this information, our judgment will be half as accurate."
After he finished speaking, he stood up and, without giving a further summary, said, "Meeting adjourned."
People in the meeting room stood up and left one after another.
Some people walked while looking down at their phones, some followed behind and whispered to each other, and some carried empty cups toward the break room.
The deputy director with thin-rimmed glasses lagged behind. He was a beat slower than usual when tidying up his materials. After standing up, he stood by the window for a while, looking at the gray sky of Shenzhen outside, lost in thought.
No one expected that a small company that started by making games could completely rewrite the entire battlefield situation within a month.
They thought they were fighting a war of suppression, but it turned out that the enemy's trump cards were several layers deeper than they had anticipated.
Meanwhile, the AI technology solution that baffled all Tencent executives was quietly running on a server on the 18th floor of a gray office building in Shanghai, iterating and becoming stronger every second.
Waiting can sometimes be more unsettling than striking.
Lu Ran understood this principle, so he chose to wait.
Wait for the opponent to reveal a weakness first, wait for their tools to generate enough data for verification, and wait for the right moment to surface.
...