Tencent Esports and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) recently announced a comprehensive ten-year strategic partnership from 2025 to 2035. This milestone marks a transition in their relationship from simple event support to a new stage of “system co-construction” centered on technology, standards, and ecosystem development. The partnership aims to propel the integration of esports and traditional sports into a new phase over the next decade, jointly shaping the future landscape of Asian esports.
This collaboration is rooted in years of solid trust and shared practice. Tencent Esports has provided critical technical support throughout esports’ journey into the Asian Games—from its debut as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, to the strategic partnership upgrade in 2022, and finally to esports’ resounding success as an official medal event at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou. Building on this foundation, the long-term strategic cooperation was ratified following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) during the OCA Executive Board meeting in Bahrain in October 2025. In a significant move to institutionalize this collaboration, Yati Zhang, director of Tencent Esports, has been appointed as the OCA Esports manager. She will play a pivotal role in the co-construction of the Asian esports event system and ecosystem development.
Dr. Husain Al-Musallam, director general of the OCA, commented on the partnership saying, “Based on the pleasant cooperation and trust built over the past decade, we have witnessed Tencent Esports’ excellence in driving industry development. This partnership is not just an upgrade in title, but a unification of responsibility. It signals that Asian esports has moved from an era of ‘participation’ to an era of ‘system co-construction.’ We look forward to working with Tencent Esports to set a sustainable example for the healthy development of esports in Asia and globally.”
Simultaneously, leveraging the successful technical application deployment at the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games, Tencent Esports is upgrading its technical capabilities to launch the Tencent Esports Competition System (ECS). This system, aggregating experience from serving multiple top-tier tournaments, will provide end-to-end, high-availability technical support for future Asian Games and other major comprehensive Asian events, ensuring competitions run in accordance with fair, stable, and efficient standards. Relying on its experience in product and ecosystem operations, Tencent Esports will also continue to deliver technical solutions and standards to support the digital transformation of major Asian tournaments. By innovating technologies and products based on past foundations, they aim to further enhance the credibility and operational efficiency of top-tier Asian events, driving high-quality development within the Asian esports industry.
Hou Miao, vice president of Tencent Games and general manager of Tencent Esports, articulated the vision for this collaboration by introducing the “Tri-Pillar Drive” integrated development model, designed to guide the industry’s future. “For esports to truly integrate into the global mainstream sports system, we must build a sustainable, replicable new order,” Hou stated. He outlined the three drivers of this model as a tripartite synergy, as follows:
- The Publisher Tech Ecosystem as the engine of innovation
- Continental/Global Sports Organizations like the OCA as the authoritative platform
- National/Regional Esports Strategies as the fulcrum for implementation
Hou added, “Embarking on this next decade of cooperation with the OCA is precisely about putting this model into practice, starting in Asia. We look forward to working with all partners to pave a viable and robust ‘Asian Path’ for collaborative development, making it a recognized and integral part of the global sports mainstream.”