ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, plans to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) model using chips from Huawei, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Faced with U.S. export restrictions, the social media giant is increasingly turning to domestic Chinese sources for chips, Reuters reports.
Since the U.S. imposed restrictions in 2022 on exporting advanced AI chips—like those produced by Nvidia—ByteDance has been diversifying by utilizing local AI chips and developing its own. In its next AI initiative, ByteDance is set to employ Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip to train a large-scale AI model, per anonymous sources familiar with the confidential plan, Reuters stated.
A fourth source indicated that ByteDance is indeed working on a new AI model, though it is uncertain whether it will also use Huawei chips. According to three sources and another informant, ByteDance primarily uses the Ascend 910B chip for inference tasks requiring lower computational power, including pre-trained AI models.
One source noted that the new model’s capabilities would be less powerful than ByteDance’s existing AI model, Doubao. However, ByteDance spokesperson Michael Hughes countered, stating, “The entire premise here is incorrect; no new model is under development.”
The growing focus on AI has reportedly made ByteDance one of Huawei’s largest customers for AI chips. ByteDance is also the top buyer of Nvidia’s H20 AI chip—designed by the American chipmaker specifically for the Chinese market in response to trade restrictions.
Two additional sources confirmed that the TikTok owner is also Microsoft’s largest customer in Asia for Nvidia chips accessed via cloud computing.