Tech giant Tencent on Wednesday reported a 13 percent rise in revenue in the first quarter, fuelled by accelerated growth in its key gaming business.

Revenue topped 180 billion yuan, beating analysts' forecasts of 174 billion yuan.

Net profit rose 14 percent year on year to 47.8 billion yuan, falling short of analyst expectations of 52.2 billion yuan.

As one of the world's largest gaming companies, the group saw revenues from its hit titles driving overall performance, benefiting from the regulatory easing in the country's gaming industry.

Domestic gaming revenue rose 24 percent year on year to 42.9 billion yuan – thanks to the performance of "Honor of Kings" and "Peacekepper Elite", as well as that of newer titles such as "DnF Mobile".

Revenue from its global gaming business, meanwhile, totalled 16.6 billion yuan, representing a 23 percent annual increase.

The group, operator of China's largest messaging app WeChat with over 1.4 billion monthly active users, also saw revenue from marketing services jump 20 percent year on year to 31.9 billion yuan, thanks to the "robust demand" from advertisers on WeChat's Mini Program product.

In a statement, the Shenzhen-headquartered company noted that capital expenditures for the first quarter amounted to 27.5 billion yuan, up 91 percent, as it continues to invest in artificial technology and develops products such as an AI chatbot called Yuanbao.

“AI capabilities already contributed tangibly to our businesses, such as performance advertising and evergreen games,” Tencent said in its earnings release.

"We also stepped up our spending on new AI opportunities, such as the Yuanbao application and AI in Weixin.

“We believe operating leverage from our existing high-quality revenue streams will help absorb the additional costs associated with these AI-related investments and contribute to healthy financial performance during this investment phase," it said.

The company said it expects strategic AI investment will generate considerable returns in the long term.