While Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance have spent the last few years aggressively pushing into AI infrastructure, NetEase has mostly stayed quiet publicly. That may now be changing.
According to reports from The Information and Bloomberg, AI company DeepSeek is planning a new funding round targeting around RMB 70 billion ($9.7 billion), with a reported valuation of roughly $45 billion. Several major Chinese companies are said to be interested, and NetEase is reportedly among them.
The development is notable because NetEase has largely avoided publicly backing external large-model AI companies despite heavily using AI internally across its gaming ecosystem. Over the past few years, the company has integrated AI into multiple live games through its Fuxi AI division.
The Curious Case of AI Integration
Titles like the MMORPG Justice Online introduced over 400 AI-driven NPCs with free dialogue and emotions, including character settings, while the casual title Eggy Party used AI-powered content creation systems. NetEase has also previously stated that AI already contributes to major efficiency improvements in parts of its development pipeline.
However, unlike several competitors, NetEase has mostly remained neutral when it came to choosing a foundational AI ecosystem. Reports suggest the company experimented with multiple AI models at once instead of committing to a single platform, and DeepSeek’s position as an independent AI company appears to be part of the attraction.
The company is not directly tied to China’s biggest platform ecosystems and has been positioning itself as a research-focused AI player. It has been reported that the company’s work around domestic AI infrastructure and Huawei Ascend chip compatibility has also drawn industry attention.
The timing is also interesting because AI is now moving beyond experimentation inside gaming. Large publishers are increasingly using AI for NPC systems, live-service operations, asset generation, player analytics, and future development pipelines.
Just recently, HoYoverse outlined plans for full-stack AI development while expanding AI integration across several upcoming projects. NetEase potentially entering the AI investment race now shows how quickly gaming companies are shifting from simply using AI tools to securing long-term positions within the broader AI ecosystem itself.
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