In open source push, Tencent joins Linux Foundation as platinum member

Chinese internet giant Tencent has become a platinum member of the Linux Foundation.

The move will place Tencent Mobile Internet Group general manager Liu Xin on the Linux Foundation’s board of directors. Additionally, the company plans to contribute an open source microservices project called TARS  and a name service project dubbed Tseer to the foundation. It will also contribute Angel, its open source AI project, to the foundation’s deep learning division.

According to the Linux Foundation, Tencent has been “using Linux exclusively for many years.” The organization also said the company was one of the first to make use of an open source controller (OpenDaylight Project’s SDN) at a large scale to manage data flow between its data centers. The company was also a founding member of the Open China SDN committee.

“We are honored to be a Platinum member of The Linux Foundation. Open source is core to Tencent’s technical strategy,” Liu said in a statement. “We look forward to strengthening our relationship with the international open source community and promoting innovation in cutting-edge technology.”

Tencent joins the ranks of fellow Chinese platinum member Huawei and international members IBM, Qualcomm, and Intel.

According to one study, Tencent ranks 12th out of the world’s tech companies regarding employees contributing to open source repositories on GitHub. Alibaba and Baidu rank 9th and 15th respectively. Alibaba’s cloud computing arm and Baidu are also both gold members of the Linux Foundation.

In May, Tencent unveiled China’s first open source Go-playing AI, making use of spare WeChat servers to train the program. Dubbed “PheonixGo,” the AI’s source code and training model can be run on a single GPU and its hosted on GitHub.