Tencent Carbon Quest Program Phase II Finalist List Announced: Supporting 16 Teams to Solve Global Issues with Global Solutions

On June 24, Tencent partnered with TED at the London Climate Week to hold an event, announcing the final shortlist of the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan." At the event, selected teams were invited to present their technologies and discussed global climate technology initiatives with climate experts, policymakers, investors, and industry partners.

After 18 months of selection and evaluation, 10 cutting-edge low-carbon technologies were selected from over 660 applications worldwide, receiving approximately 170 million yuan in pilot funding from Tencent's "Carbon Quest Plan." Additionally, six innovative technologies received a total of about 10 million yuan in carbon credit pre-purchase, MRV (monitoring, reporting, and verification) support, or green premium subsidies.

The 16 projects on the final list include four Chinese teams, such as Nanjing University, the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, and Sipeng Technology, as well as teams from Kenya, Belgium, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other countries. Since the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan" was launched in December 2024, it has attracted applications from teams in 54 countries and regions globally, and the global top 50 list was announced in October 2025. The final list released this time reflects the original intention of the "Carbon Quest Plan" to solve global problems with global solutions.

Let cutting-edge technologies solve climate issues in real-world scenarios

Xiao Wangjun is an assistant professor at the School of Energy and Resources, Nanjing University. His team's project, "High-Efficiency Charged Biochar Air Capture Technology Driven by Geothermal-PV Integration," is one of the shortlisted projects in the second phase of Tencent's "Carbon Quest Plan." According to him, the project uses a low-cost charged biochar that can directly capture carbon dioxide (DAC technology) from the air. The team's DAC technology not only has high capture capacity and low-temperature desorption characteristics but also combines Kenya's abundant geothermal and solar resources to save a lot of energy during carbon capture, achieving a balance between material stability and overall efficiency.

Kenya, mentioned by Xiao Wangjun, is one of the demonstration sites for the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan." Unlike technology evaluations that focus on theory, the "Carbon Quest Plan" aims to address climate issues in real-world scenarios. It is reported that the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan" includes four tracks: Carbon Removal (CDR), Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) in the steel industry, Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) in manufacturing, and Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES). Except for the CCU track in manufacturing, the other three tracks have specific demonstration sites, requiring application teams to propose climate solutions based on site characteristics.

For example, Kenya was chosen as a demonstration site for the CDR track because of its abundant renewable energy and the high-quality geological storage conditions in its central and southern rift areas, which are favorable for technology implementation. The demonstration sites for the steel industry CCUS are located in Handan, China, and Serbia. Through cooperation with two traditional long-process steel mills, the "Carbon Quest Plan" helps the selected projects conduct thousand-ton-scale CCUS full-cycle trials. As an island nation, Maldives is greatly affected by the climate crisis, and how to reduce the impact of new energy power supply on grid stability is key, making it an ideal test site for LDES. Professor Zhu Jia from Nanjing University said: "The 'Carbon Quest Plan' not only provides funds for cutting-edge low-carbon technologies, but more importantly, connects the technologies with real-world scenarios, allowing them to move out of the laboratory."

Xu Hao, Vice President of Sustainable Social Value at Tencent and Director of the Carbon Neutrality Innovation Center, stated at the London Climate Week that many cutting-edge technologies addressing climate change often fail to scale due to lack of funding and real-world testing environments. The "Carbon Quest Plan" identified this development challenge and, through collaboration with industry, investment, and ecological partners, invested capital, connected scenarios, and helped promising low-carbon technologies overcome the "valley of death" from laboratory to practical application, seeking more solutions to the global issue of climate crisis.

Xu Hao, Vice President of Sustainable Social Value at Tencent, gives a speech at the London Climate Week

Diversified Support Expands New Collaboration Pathways for Low-Carbon Technologies

In addition to providing financial support and resource empowerment to 10 innovative technologies, the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan" also supports more climate innovation technologies through diversified methods such as carbon credit pre-purchase, MRV support, or green premium subsidies.

Huang Xinwo, Senior Director of Strategy Development at Tencent and head of the "Carbon Quest Plan," said that the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan" has seen a large number of promising low-carbon innovation technologies emerge, but the needs of different teams vary significantly. By offering diversified support, they can provide corresponding assistance to projects with different technical routes and stages of development.

The Zhang Zishuai team from Peking University is one of the selected teams that received MRV support. Their project is in the CDR track, focusing on the ocean area, using low-pressure electroadsorption and seawater desalination engineering coupling to efficiently mineralize seawater inorganic carbon into calcium carbonate—briefly put, building an "artificial coral carbon capture factory" to achieve carbon removal. The project received recognition from global judges, but in the field of ocean carbon removal, MRV and cost are core barriers to its large-scale implementation. Addressing the pain point of the lack of MRV standards for this technological route, the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan" provided MRV support and invested funds to promote MRV technology innovation and the establishment of standardized methods.

Additionally, Tencent will sign thousand-ton-level carbon credit purchase agreements with some selected teams. For technologies with long-term commercial potential but short-term green premium issues, the "Carbon Quest Plan" provides product green subsidies to accelerate the adoption of these technologies by downstream industries.

Professor Jiang Peixue, from the Department of Energy and Power Engineering at Tsinghua University and co-chair of the Expert Committee of the "Carbon Quest Plan," believes that the global collaboration platform established by the "Carbon Quest Plan" is highly forward-looking. It connects various parties and supports climate innovators in diverse ways, demonstrating Tencent's deep thinking on climate issues as a tech company, and has positive significance for industry collaboration, academic exchange, and project investment.

 Group photo of the shortlisted teams of the second phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan"

Huang Xinwo said that since the launch of the "Carbon Quest Plan," it has received widespread attention from the industry, and the achievements of the projects supported in the first phase are gradually becoming evident. The demonstration of the technologies selected in the second phase will soon be implemented around the world. In the future, the "Carbon Quest Plan" will further tap into Tencent's strengths in technology and ecology, continuously explore new solutions in the climate field. It was revealed that preparations for the third phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan" have already started.

Shortlisted Projects of the Second Phase of the "Carbon Quest Plan"