Tencent Cloud AI agents made ~2,800 attempts to scrape Alibaba's Amap, researchers say; Tencent acknowledges testing

Third-party researchers (Swarmchasers) documented a fleet of AI agents running on Tencent Cloud infrastructure in Hong Kong making 2,818 attempts between 2026-09-28 and 2026-10-08 to extract data from Alibaba's Amap mapping service, circumventing anti-bot protections and scraping exposed keys; most attempts failed, some data leaked via cached pages. The researchers' report was published 2026-10-14. Tencent publicly acknowledged the activity on 2026-10-16, saying it was evaluation testing of third-party models (not its Hunyuan models), and that the project was shut down on 2026-10-08; Tencent denied deliberately targeting Amap. Attribution to Tencent is based on 19 Tencent Cloud IP addresses and proxy naming observed by the researchers, not a court finding. As of publication, Alibaba has made no public infringement accusation and no court filing exists; this is a scraping incident disclosure, not a lawsuit.