ByteDance and Broadcom, talks on an Ai chip

ByteDance and Broadcom discussed a potential collaboration on an Ai processor to help TikTok's parent company develop this technology. According to a person familiar with the dossier, the US chip designer and ByteDance, TikTok's Beijing-based parent company, discussed a purpose-built 5-nanometer chip. No agreement has yet been reached between the two companies, and Broadcom already supplies an older 7-nanometre Ai processor for use in ByteDance's data centres. The proposed chip would comply with US trade restrictions against China. Existing business relations between the two companies largely concern servers and networking equipment, and Broadcom has cited ByteDance as a customer in its press releases.

In March, Broadcom told investors that it had added a new customer for its consumer artificial intelligence accelerator business and would ship products to this company in the coming months, without providing a name. Should the two companies reach an agreement, the custom chip would be produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. The tie-up between TikTok's owner and two global semiconductor companies is unusual, given that Washington is actively trying to limit Chinese chip-making ambitions through a series of broad production and export restrictions.

The agreement aims to ensure a steady supply of chips to ByteDance, which operates the world's largest short video platform and Chinese services Douyin and Toutiao. ByteDance's Doubao became the most popular Ai chatbot in China this year. ByteDance's global competitors, from Meta Platforms. and Microsoft to Google are all developing or already using their own chips tailored for Ai activities. TikTok's parent company will try to keep up with its US rivals, having made Ai a priority this year.