TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has big plans to buy Nvidia chips in 2025, despite US restrictions.
ByteDance plans to spend $7 billion on the chip in 2025, The Information reported, citing internal sources. If ByteDance does this, it will become one of the world’s largest owners of NVIDIA chips, despite US efforts to restrict Chinese companies from purchasing such US-made AI chips.
In 2022, the United States announced restrictions on exports of certain types of AI chips to countries including China, where ByteDance is headquartered. These restrictions have since been tightened many times.
According to a report in The Information, ByteDance technically uses a loophole to comply with these restrictions. The company says it doesn’t bring the chips directly to China, instead storing them in data centers in other regions such as Southeast Asia. This technically does not violate US regulations.
ByteDance operates China’s “hottest” AI chatbot, Doubao, with 51 million active users, according to the South China Morning Post.
TechCrunch has reached out to ByteDance for more information.
