(Yicai) Feb. 17 -- Shares of Tencent Holdings soared to a near four-year high after the Chinese internet giant said it has begun trials to integrate Chinese artificial intelligence sensation DeepSeek's large language model into its instant messaging and social media app WeChat.

Tencent [HKG: 0700] was trading up 4.5 percent at HKD496 (USD63.75) as of 11.50 a.m. in Hong Kong today, after earlier jumping to as much as HKD512, the highest since July, 2021.

A limited amount of WeChat users can access the app's AI Search option to access the full version of DeepSeek-R1 for free during the beta test, the Shenzhen-based company announced yesterday.

Tencent explained to Yicai that it has not cooperated with DeepSeek in any way but instead launched a one-click deployment function like Tencent Cloud TI Platform did earlier this month.

The company is also testing to include DeepSeek-R1 in other of its self-developed AI products, including general LLM Hunyuan, Tencent told Yicai.

DeepSeek released DeepSeek-R1 on Jan. 20. Its performance compares favorably with leading LLMs, but at a much lower cost. DeepSeek-R1 is open-source, so users can use it for free and even fully access its programming interface functionalities. Moreover, enterprises can integrate it into their own services free of charge.

Other companies that have deployed DeepSeek-R1 include the cloud computing units of TikTok's owner ByteDance, Baidu, and Alibaba Group Holding.

DeepSeek-R1 has already entered the global top three LLM ranking, Zhang Junlin, head of new technology research and development at Sina Weibo, told Yicai, adding that other LLMs either perform worse or are closed-source, making the launch of DeepSeek-R1 a significant disruption to the industry.

Editor: Futura Costaglione