People familiar with the matter said that China’s ByteDance is also working on an artificial intelligence chip and has been negotiating with Samsung Electronics to manufacture it, as the TikTok parent seeks to secure a supply of advanced processors.
It was reported that ByteDance intends to receive sample chips by end-March. One of the sources stated that the company will manufacture at least 100,000 units of the chip, which will be used in the application of AI inference tasks, this year.
Sources indicated that Bytedance is trying to increase production in stages to a maximum of 350,000 units. It was indicated that the negotiations with Samsung involve access to memory chip supplies, which are exceptionally scarce amid the worldwide AI infrastructure build-out, and the deal is specifically appealing.
One of the spokespersons of the company said in a statement, without elaborating, that the information regarding the in-house chip project of ByteDance is not accurate. Therefore, Samsung declined to comment on the matter.
The work would be a milestone for ByteDance, which has long been interested in creating chips to assist its AI workloads. The company has been working on chips at least since 2022, when it started recruiting chip-related employees in earnest.
Reuters reported in June 2024 that ByteDance was collaborating with U.S. chip designer Broadcom on an advanced AI processor, and the manufacturing would be outsourced to Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC.
However, technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have pioneered their own AI chips as they seek to avoid being dependent on Nvidia, the market leader in providing high-end chips that are vital in developing AI.
The Chinese tech firms have also been pressed by U.S. export controls on sales of advanced chip technology to China, and are now developing their own AI chips.
Although Bytedance is not the first company to release its own chip, its competitors Alibaba and Baidu are already ahead in AI chip development: last month, Alibaba introduced its own Zhenwu chip to handle large-scale AI workloads.
Meanwhile, Baidu also sells chips to other customers and expects to IPO its chip division Kunlunxin in the near future.
The chip initiative, known as SeedChip, is the extension of the larger initiative by ByteDance to invest resources in AI development, including chips, large language models, and betting that the technology will reshape its business portfolio, including short video, e-commerce, and enterprise cloud services.
The company was established in 2023 to develop AI models and promote their applications. The sources stated that ByteDance intends to invest over 160 billion yuan ($22 billion) in AI-related purchases, and over half of that sum is dedicated to buying Nvidia chips, including H200 models, and developing its own chip.
ByteDance executive Zhao Qi informed employees at a January all-hands meeting that the company’s AI investment would add value in all divisions. Zhao, who oversees ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot and its overseas version Dola, mentioned that the company’s AI models had delayed global leaders like OpenAI but intended to support AI development this year.
