The device, priced at 2,880 yuan (US$399), was jointly introduced on Sunday by Tencent Ethereal Audio Lab, part of the Tencent Meeting live audio and videoconferencing app business, and hearing aid maker Shenzhen Eartech Company.

Using Tencent’s self-developed AI algorithm, the new hearing aid provides about 85 per cent improved sound clarity and speech intelligibility compared with similar devices in the market, according to the company.

At the launch, Silver Hair Technology Lab – operating under the Sustainable Social Value Organisation within Tencent’s Corporate Development Group – joined its parent firm and Shenzhen Eartech in a pledge to donate one AI-powered hearing aid, for each device sold during the presale period, to a hearing-impaired senior citizen in the mainland’s rural areas. The presale period started on Sunday and will conclude on November 7.

Shenzhen-based Tencent also committed to donate the new AI-powered hearing aid to an initial batch of 500 senior citizens in Shaoguan, a city in southern Guangdong province, as part of the company’s long-term initiative with the local government and partner charities.Since 2020, Tencent Ethereal Audio Lab has made its audio AI technology, which powers the Zoom-like Tencent Meeting service, available for free to developers and manufacturers in the hearing care devices market.

Tencent’s audio AI technology, for example, has improved the clarity and intelligibility of cochlear implants by 40 per cent, according to the company. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sound, a cochlear implant is an electronic device that bypasses damaged portions of the ear to deliver sound signals to the auditory nerve.

In China’s ageing population, less than 10 cent of hearing-impaired elderly people are equipped with hearing aids, which is far behind the 30 per cent level in European countries and the US, according to a report jointly released on Sunday by Tencent and Nanjing University. “World Deaf Day” is observed annually on the last Sunday of September.“We need to do what is hard, but right … this is what the country and society expect of us,” Pony Ma Huateng, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Tencent, wrote in the company’s first sustainable social values report released in May.

Tencent in new investment drive in China’s healthcare sector

Last week, corporate filings showed that Tencent planned to invest 291 million yuan in Jiangsu Xunjie Medical Technology Co to acquire a 19.5 per cent stake in the company, which controls German firm Metrax – a maker of defibrillators and other first aid medical equipment under the Primedic brand.

Other recent healthcare-related deals by Tencent include Beijing-based drug discovery firm Singlomics and nursing home company Fortune Care in Shanghai, according to data from online business registry service Tianyancha.

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