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Top tech talent in China can expect lavish bonuses for 2025 as big tech firms from ByteDance to Tencent Holdings double down on efforts to retain and lure people with specialised skills in fields such as artificial intelligence.
TikTok owner ByteDance expanded its bonus pool by 35 per cent from a year earlier, as well as increased the budget for pay rises by 150 per cent, according to Chinese media outlet The Paper. The company also lifted pay floors and ceilings across all job levels. The increases were done to ensure the company offered globally competitive compensation, according to the report.
Shenzhen-based social media and video gaming giant Tencent Holdings was also on a hiring spree for AI-related talent, including poaching people from rivals, according to a report by US news outlet The Information. Tencent has lured several researchers from rivals by offering to double their existing salaries.
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One high-profile recruitment was Yao Shunyu, a former researcher at San Francisco-based OpenAI, who was named chief AI scientist at Tencent, reporting directly to company president Martin Lau. Yao will also lead Tencent’s AI Infra and LLM Development units and reports to Lu Shan, head of the Technology Engineering Group.
Tencent recruited AI researcher Yao Shunyu from OpenAI. Photo: Handout alt=Tencent recruited AI researcher Yao Shunyu from OpenAI. Photo: Handout>
According to a report by Maimai, China’s leading professional social network, the index for new AI positions leapt 543 per cent year on year between January and October 2025, compared to a 197.8 per cent year-on-year increase in the same period in 2024. While Maimai does not disclose absolute numbers, the index represents the volume of new job postings.
The salary hikes for AI talent in China mirror the situation in Silicon Valley, where many top AI researchers are Chinese. Seven out of the 11 publicly named recent hires at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs hail from China: Bi Shuchao, Chang Huiwen, Lin Ji, Ren Hongyu, Sun Pei, Yu Jiahui and Zhao Shengjia.
Meta Platforms on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Manus, a Singapore-based but China-founded start-up specialising in AI agents, taking in one of its founders, Xiao Hong, as a vice-president at Meta.
Higher salaries are also being offered in other tech sectors. E-commerce giant JD.com said 92 per cent of its workforce would receive a full year-end bonus. Its total annual bonuses surged by more than 70 per cent year on year, in what was expected to be the largest increase in the tech industry this year, according to The Paper.