Google penned a patent licensing deal with Chinese internet giant Tencent, which was seen as a way to ease the US-based search giant’s work in the country – where its key services are blocked.

While Google is no stranger to large patent licensing deals, Reuters said the agreement with Tencent is its first with a “large Chinese tech firm”. Google enjoys a solid relationship with Huawei, with the Chinese company having made Nexus-branded smartphones for Google and earlier this week announcing a deal to work together on enhanced messaging services.

However, Google also played-down speculation it had ramped-up its mapping activities in the country.

The Tencent deal is said to cover a broad range of products, and also paves the way for collaboration on future technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Competition
The blocking of services from Google in China – and those of other international players including Facebook and Twitter – led to the creation of a number of local internet giants which offer their own services meeting similar user needs.

These companies – primarily Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent – have also been able to move strongly into other markets in a similar way to Google, for example establishing leadership positions in payments, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services.

In December 2017, Google opened an AI research centre in Beijing, which it said will work alongside other international centres in “contributing towards the same goal of finding ways to make AI work better for everyone”. It also holds developer events in the country.

China’s authorities have said if Google and its peers want to access the Chinese market, they would need to abide by the country’s robust internet rules – which critics say limit freedom of speech and impact privacy.