Game companies spark an AI investment wave: 108 investments in the first half, exceeding the 89 for all of 2025

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Recently, Guangzhou Kuro Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Kuro") invested in and took an equity stake in an AI voice company—Yanzhiyu Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yanzhiyu"). According to the business information platform Tianyancha, Kuro's subscribed capital contribution was 194,346 yuan, giving it a 15% stake in Yanzhiyu, and Kuro founder and chairman Liu Sheng was appointed as a director of Yanzhiyu.

This is a microcosm of the investment boom in AI that has swept the gaming industry. According to the "2026 China Game Industry AI Development Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by the game industry research institution Gamma Data, in the first half of this year alone, among the top 50 companies by game revenue, the number of AI investment cases reached 108, exceeding the 89 cases in all of 2025.

Yanzhiyu was founded in 2024, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Guangzhou Shuogu Technology Co., Ltd. is the developer of the AI voice model "Wusheng." "Wusheng" is an AI audio creation platform that provides functions such as speech synthesis, dubbing, sound design, voice changing, and music and sound effect generation, and can be used for audio production in scenarios such as audio content and video.

One of the focuses of outside attention on Kuro's investment in Yanzhiyu lies in the two-dimensional (anime-style) cultural background shared by both parties.

Kuro's products "Punishing: Gray Raven" and "Wuthering Waves" are both two-dimensional games whose business models are designed around character gacha. Among them, "Wuthering Waves" launched in May 2024 and has become one of the leading two-dimensional open-world mobile games, ranking 17th on the 2025 China overseas mobile game revenue list published by the mobile app market research institution AppMagic.

Yanzhiyu founder Xie Weiduo once created the virtual streamer "Mujimeng." Currently, "Mujimeng" has more than 150,000 followers on Bilibili. According to Xie Weiduo's previous interviews with media reporters, one of his original intentions in starting the business was to match "Mujimeng" with more natural speech.

There are precedents for using AI dubbing for in-game characters. Swedish developer Embark Studios used AI text-to-speech technology in its products The Finals and ARC Raiders, which once sparked controversy among players; in the DLC "Phantom Liberty" subsequently released for "Cyberpunk 2077," because the voice actor for one of the original characters had passed away, CD Projekt Red hired another actor to record new lines and then used AI technology to process the voice, so as to continue the original character's vocal performance.

As early as 2021, miHoYo invested in the general large-model company MiniMax, and later also successively injected capital into Galbot, which focuses on embodied intelligence, and GravityXR, which focuses on XR chips, among others. miHoYo itself has also accumulated experience in the AI field—in 2018, miHoYo established "Anti-Entropy Studio," and in 2022 the team was upgraded to the "Anti-Entropy Artificial Intelligence Research Institute." In May this year, miHoYo co-founder Liu Wei announced a plan to invest 100 billion yuan of its own funds over three years to deepen its work in the AI field.

As Kuro's controlling shareholder, Tencent is also regarded by the outside world as indirectly holding a stake in Yanzhiyu through Kuro, making a move to strengthen its technology in the AI field. Previously, Tencent invested in Moonshot AI, Baichuan Intelligence, MiniMax, Zhipu AI, and others. Tencent itself has also made large-scale investments in the AI field—in 2025, Tencent's capital expenditure reached 79.2 billion yuan, with about 18 billion yuan invested in new AI products for the year.

By comparison, 37 Interactive Entertainment's investments in the AI field are broader. According to incomplete statistics, 37 Interactive Entertainment has invested in at least Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, Baichuan Intelligence, Shenyan Technology, BrainCo, and RayNeo, with technical directions covering foundation large models, long-text general large models, brain-computer interfaces, smart terminals, and others.

The above-mentioned "Report" shows that among the top 50 companies by game revenue in 2025, 80% have publicly disclosed that they have carried out AI-related arrangements, and 37.5% have made arrangements on the capital side, investing in or acquiring AI-related companies.

The "Report" shows that in recent years, cases of AI investment in the gaming industry have climbed year by year. In the first half of this year, among the top 50 companies by game revenue, the cumulative number of investments in AI companies reached 108, and in all of 2025 it reached 89.

Game companies' investments in AI are often strongly related to their own businesses. The "Report" points out that the above-mentioned game companies' AI investment directions cover multiple fields such as foundation models and MaaS, computing infrastructure, multimodal content generation, AI Agents, embodied intelligence, and spatial intelligence. Among them, industry AI solutions are the most favored by game companies, accounting for 27.8% of the investment cases counted in the "Report."

Cost reduction and efficiency improvement are the core driving force

Some game companies have already obtained substantial capital returns through their investments in the AI field. In January 2026, MiniMax listed in Hong Kong, with miHoYo holding about 6.4%, for a floating gain of nearly 10 billion yuan and a return rate of more than 100 times; Moore Threads listed on the STAR Market, having a positive impact of about 640 million yuan on Century Huatong's net profit in the fourth quarter of 2025; Zhipu AI listed, and 37 Interactive Entertainment's investment income in the first quarter of this year reached 359 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 981.35%.

However, game companies invest in AI not merely for financial returns. Unlike professional investment institutions that seek to exit within a specific number of years, game companies and the AI companies they invest in often have deeper ties—Kuro holds a 15% stake in Yanzhiyu, with its founder personally serving as a director; miHoYo has repeatedly increased its investment in MiniMax, with its co-founder Liu Wei serving as a non-executive director of MiniMax, and MiniMax's models are used in "Honkai: Star Rail" and other products for character behavior control, NPC intelligent dialogue, 3D modeling optimization, plot generation, and other links.

"Cost reduction and efficiency improvement are currently the core driving force for game companies' AI arrangements," Hu Xiaolu, a researcher at Guangdada, told the reporter. "Game R&D and publishing require a large amount of art, translation, and advertising materials, and these tasks used to require considerable time and manpower, while AI can significantly improve efficiency."

Hu Xiaolu cited 37 Interactive Entertainment's performance in the first half of this year as an example, saying that more than 80% of the company's 2D art assets are generated with AI assistance, and more than 70% of game advertising video materials involve deep AI participation; Yoozoo Games also disclosed that AI has increased the efficiency of advertising material production by 3 to 5 times and reduced localization translation costs by 80%.

For game companies expanding overseas, AI can both help companies save costs and accelerate the pace of game R&D and overseas promotion. "A game often has to be adapted to more than a dozen languages, and a large number of advertising materials must be produced for players in different countries. The intensity and results of AI in reducing costs and improving efficiency are very obvious," Hu Xiaolu said.

If cost reduction and efficiency improvement are mainly reflected in the application of AI in links such as R&D and publishing that players do not easily perceive directly, then concepts such as AI NPCs and AI companionship point to game experiences that players can directly perceive. In recent years, game companies have also continuously described the possibility of AI reshaping game experiences. However, Hu Xiaolu believes that at present, AI's breakthroughs in gameplay are still relatively limited. "Although there have already been AI NPCs and other attempts, there is still a certain distance before truly changing players' game experience."

"By investing to get early exposure to new technologies and establish cooperative relationships, game companies will have the opportunity in the future to carry out customized R&D according to their own needs," Hu Xiaolu said. "AI companionship, AI social networking, and AI short dramas are all relatively popular directions at present. Investing in related companies not only helps explore new business lines but may also bring equity investment returns."

(Source: China Business Journal) Middle of the main text Embedded advertisement