(Yicai) Sept. 3 -- China National Petroleum Corporation will transfer a 0.3 percent stake in the oil and gas giant's listed arm PetroChina to China Mobile, the country's biggest mobile telecoms carrier, for free to strengthen the alliance between the two state-owned firms.

CNPC will give around 541 million PetroChina shares to China Mobile, lifting its stake to 0.4 percent, the unit announced yesterday. The move aims to deepen the strategic ties between CNPC and China Mobile, expand areas of collaboration, and optimize PetroChina's shareholding structure, it noted.

CNPC will still own around 82.2 percent of PetroChina after the deal.

Beijing-based CNPC and China Mobile are directly managed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which is under the country's cabinet. In January last year, the pair inked a deal to deepen their ties in digital transformation, fifth-generation network, computing power, artificial intelligence, and other areas.

CNPC and China Mobile jointly launched the Kunlun large model in August last year, making it the country's first AI model tailored for the energy and chemical industries. The latest version of the model was released in May, expanding its parameter scale to 300 billion from 70 billion.

During CNPC's mid-year work conference on July 25, Chairman Dai Houliang said that the firm will make every effort to drive its digital and intelligent transformation, systematically develop emerging industries, and become a world-class innovative company by 2035.

Shares of PetroChina [SHA: 601857] closed 0.2 percent higher at CNY9.10 (USD1.27) apiece today, bringing its market capitalization to about CNY1.7 trillion (USD237.9 billion). China Mobile's stock [SHA: 600941] dropped 0.5 percent to CNY107.39 (USD15.04), with its market cap at around CNY2.3 trillion. The broader Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.2 percent.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev