Tencent announced the launch of the Global Anti-Pandemic Fund, a $100m programme, having previously set up a $211m Anti-Pandemic fund to support healthcare workers in its native China.
Martin Lau, president at Tencent, said: “We are facing this challenge together and Tencent is committed to supporting the international emergency response.”
China’s second-richest man and Alibaba founder Jack Ma has donated RMB100m ($14.4m) to help invent a vaccine for coronavirus.
Alibaba is lending nearly $3bn to small companies and covering purchases of medical supplies from its ecommerce platform and overseeing shipping logistics using a fund of more than $140m established on January 25 to fight the coronavirus.
Fellow tech firms Netflix and Facebook also launched $100m funds.
Payment services firm Mastercard committed $25m to Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a US-based drug development accelerator that launched with $125m in seed funding.
Philanthropic organisation the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and life science research charity the Wellcome Trust have each contributed $50m to the scheme.
Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will evaluate existing drugs and look to develop new medicines to tackle the disease.
There are no antiviral treatments or immunotherapies currently available. While several companies are working on vaccines, the necessity for clinical trials means any vaccine will be least another year away from commercial release.
The accelerator will make any resulting products widely available and affordable to countries with little resources. It will focus on the entire drug development process, from initial pipeline through manufacturing to the scale-up stage.
The initiative will collaborate with the World Health Organisation as well as governments and private industry, while committing to share research, pool resources and coordinate investments in an effort to speed up drug development.
Mike Froman, vice-chairman of Mastercard, said: “We are proud to join this crucial effort to combat Covid-19 in furtherance of our commitment to inclusive growth.
“This global challenge not only represents a risk to the health and safety of populations all over the world, but also poses a potential disruption to the economic vitality of millions of people, businesses and organisations worldwide.
“Our experience with financial inclusion shows us the importance of building a network of parties who bring not only their capital, but complementary assets and skill sets to the table, and we welcome other partners concerned about inclusive growth to join this effort.”