Tencent Holdings this week commenced beta testing on CodeBuddy IDE, a smart programming tool for software developers that provides artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language support for designing, building and deploying new applications. The tool from Tencent Cloud – the AI and cloud computing unit of Shenzhen-based Tencent – underwent a closed 24-hour test on Wednesday with more than 50,000 invited participants, according to a Tencent post on WeChat. Beta testing involved real-world users, outside the CodeBuddy development team, who examined the pre-release version of the new programming tool. In programming, IDE stands for integrated development environment – essentially, a one-stop platform for developers to make use of various software tools to write, test and debug code. CodeBuddy, according to Tencent, features a fully automated “conversation-is-programming” approach. That enables even a non-technical user to complete the entire development process – from product concept and design to deployment – using natural language dialogue and AI “without writing a single line of code”, which would significantly boost efficiency in building applications. Tencent’s foray into sophisticated, AI-powered tools for developers reflected the significant advances being made by Chinese tech companies. Alibaba Cloud – the cloud computing and AI arm of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post – on Wednesday released Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct, a new open-source coder under its Qwen3 family of AI models, to ratchet up the high-performance development of AI agents. According to Alibaba, agentic AI coding was “transforming software development by enabling more autonomous, efficient and accessible programming workflows”. AI agents are software programs that are capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system. While its commercial release has yet to be announced, Tencent’s CodeBuddy is expected to be available in both international and domestic versions, according to the company. Codebuddy’s international version would integrate a number of top overseas-developed AI models like Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s GPT and Google DeepMind’s Gemini. The tool’s domestic version would support mainland AI models including Tencent’s Hunyuan and those from DeepSeek, with a focus on “dialogue programming”. Completed projects that use CodeBuddy can be deployed by developers via Tencent’s CloudStudio, the firm’s cloud-based IDE, which provides a shareable link for users to access new applications across various devices. Tencent, which operates the world’s largest video gaming business by revenue and Chinese super app WeChat, has seen its investments in AI pay off, as the firm posted its best quarter on record since listing in Hong Kong in 2004. With more than US$640 billion in market capitalisation, Tencent reported better-than-expected financial results in the first quarter from a year earlier, as revenue rose 13 per cent and profit grew 14 per cent. Tencent’s shares closed up nearly 1 per cent to HK$557 on Thursday.