• Silver nanoparticle coated activated carbon (Ag-NP@AC) was synthesized. • Ag nanoparticles greatly enhance external nucleation kinetics out of porespace. • Ag-NP@AC leads to more enhanced hydrate kinetics than original activated carbon. • Ag-NP@AC saves 96.88% of induction time under low overpressure of 2.1 MPa. • Ag-NP@AC saves 85.25% of induction time under large water content of 1.4. Although activated carbon (AC) can significantly enhance hydrate nucleation kinetics due to abundant specific surface area and pore texture, the promotion drastically degenerates under low driving force and large water contents. Taking exceptional heat transfer of silver into account, silver nanoparticles were immobilized on activated carbon by in situ reduction method, giving rise to silver nanoparticle coated activated carbon (Ag-NP@AC), and the performance of Ag-NP@AC on hydrate formation kinetics was evaluated. Hydrate nucleation loaded by activated carbon was governed by external nucleation and that in inner pores, so slow hydrate nucleation was observed under low driving force and large water contents, where inner nucleation is hindered, and 500.67 min is required to induce hydrate nucleation at low overpressure (Δ P = 2.1 MPa), while 1145.4 min is inevitable for large water content ( R w = 1.4). Encouragingly, the presence of Ag nanoparticles significantly improves this limitation by enhancing external nucleation, Ag-NP@AC shortens hydrate induction time to a large extent, which reduces by 96.88% and 85.25% under mild condition (Δ P = 2.1 MPa) and large water content ( R w = 1.4), respectively. These findings provide new perspective on the application of porous carbon materials on hydrate-based solidified natural gas technologies.