The Tencent Holdings Ltd booth during an expo in Shanghai. [Photo by Fan Jianlei/For China Daily]

SHENZHEN -- Chinese tech giant Tencent announced on Monday that the company will sponsor a public welfare investment initiative worth 50 billion yuan (about $7.66 billion) to promote "sustainable social value innovation."

Tencent's chairman and CEO Pony Ma made the promise in his letter to employees, in which he put forward the strategy of "taking root in the consumer Internet, embracing the industrial Internet and promoting sustainable social value innovation." He said the company proposed the strategy of establishing footholds in the consumer Internet and industrial Internet in 2018. "We are willing to go further to incorporate 'sustainable social value innovation' into the company's core strategy," said Ma.

In the letter, he specifies the strategy's related fields as basic sciences, educational innovation, rural vitalization promotion, carbon neutrality, FEW (food, energy and water), public emergencies, elderly health care technology and digitalization in the public welfare sector.

Tencent has upgraded its former public welfare department into the division of sustainable social value.