Tencent unveils winners of CarbonX program

Tencent Holdings on Thursday unveiled the winners of the first phase of its ground breaking carbon program as the Shenzhen-based video gaming and social media giant looks beyond conventional green technologies in search for new climate technologies in its decarbonization push.

The 13 winners were chosen from 30 finalists and more than 300 initial applications and will receive a total of 100 million yuan (US$13.9 million) in financial support as well as advisory assistance from Tencent. 

The 13 winners include four research projects at three universities and one research institution, six projects with commercialization potential at six startup firms and three that work on the infrastructure to facilitate industry development at two universities and one research center.

These projects have adopted innovative solutions, such as using steel slag to capture and store carbon directly from furnace exhaust, converting carbon dioxide into sustainable aviation fuel and valuable chemicals through tools such as electrochemical reactions or microorganisms and employing new approaches to directly capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.    

Some of these winners will team up with Tencent’s industry partners to test their research in real-world settings.

Tencent launched its flagship CarbonX program on March 23 last year. The program aims to encourage and support development of next generation low-carbon technologies. It will also promote the large-scale application of such cutting-edge technologies by committing 200 million yuan in catalytic funding over the next three years. The first phase of the program focuses on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, which collect carbon dioxide coming out of a facility before it enters the atmosphere, and carbon removal or carbon drawdown, a technique which captures from the atmosphere.

These solutions can help promote the green transformation of those hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement and chemicals, mitigate the continued reliance on fossil fuels and reduce accumulated carbon emissions created from decades of industrialization.

Once commercialized, each technology has the potential to eradicate 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, equivalent to taking 20 million gas-powered cars off the road, Tencent estimates.

Tencent said the CarbonX program aims to help those cutting-edge technologies transition from the laboratory or early startup stage to commercial scale.

“The ultimate goal is to use technology to help achieve targets outlined in the Paris Agreement: a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050,”the firm said in a statement Thursday.

“To pave the path for a greener economy, we must champion the development of cutting-edge low-carbon technologies,” said Jerry Yan, chair professor of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and co-chair of the CarbonX expert committee, in the statement.

“Just as solar and wind power were nurtured in their infancy, emerging solutions like CCUS and tech-based carbon removal demand our early support.”

Tencent plans to launch the second phase of the CarbonX program globally as early as later this year in search of early-stage innovative climate technologies.

Tencent announced February 24 in 2022 its plan to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations and supply chain by no later than 2030, committing to using green power for 100% of all electricity consumed by 2030.

Tencent's plan includes the reduction of carbon emissions from power consumption in data centers and buildings, as well as the reduction of indirect carbon emissions from the supply chain, such as infrastructure materials, purchased servers, and energy use in company-leased data centers, Xu Hao, Tencent’s vice-president of sustainable social value and head of Tencent’s Carbon Neutrality Lab, declared then.