Tencent Taps Cheap Offshore Yuan Debt to Fuel AI Infrastructure Race Against Global Rivals

Tencent Holdings sold $5.7 billion in bonds this week—its largest debt offering in more than six years—leveraging significantly cheaper offshore yuan financing to bankroll a massive expansion of artificial-intelligence infrastructure. In what represents a stark competitive advantage, the Chinese tech giant priced 26 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) of offshore yuan securities with coupons of just 2.4% on 10-year notes and 3% on 30-year notes, well below the 6%+ yields commanded by its concurrent dollar-denominated tranches. The yuan portion of the offering alone accounted for more than double the proceeds from Tencent's dollar-denominated bonds.