ByteDance, the parent company of the popular TikTok app, has announced plans to develop a new artificial intelligence (AI) model using Huawei’s electronic chips. This move is a direct response to US sanctions that have compelled the Chinese social media giant to localize its chip production and prioritize domestic consumption.
Since the US began restricting exports of advanced AI chips—such as those produced by Nvidia—in 2022, ByteDance has diversified its supply of domestically produced AI chips and accelerated their development.
AI plays a pivotal role in the technology industry, with companies across various sectors, including gaming and e-commerce, differentiating their offerings through the integration of custom AI models used for pattern recognition and informed decision-making.
The company plans to utilize Huawei’s Ascend 910 B chip to develop a large language model currently under development. ByteDance also plans a new AI model, though it remains unclear whether it will also utilize Huawei chips.
ByteDance already uses the Ascend 910B primarily for less computationally intensive inference tasks, which involve pre-trained AI models making predictions.
While AI model training is highly demanding, requiring vast amounts of data and high-performance chips such as Nvidia’s GPUs, the new model’s capabilities and complexity (measured by its computational requirements) will be less powerful than ByteDance’s current AI model.
Michael Hughes, TikTok’s Washington spokesperson, stated on ByteDance’s behalf: “The whole premise here is wrong. No new model is being developed.”
Limited Resources for TikTok’s Parent Company
News reports indicate that ByteDance requested over 100,000 Ascend 910B chips this year but received fewer than 30,000 by July, a pace too slow to meet the company’s needs.
It’s noteworthy that ByteDance’s current AI technology is used in its flagship large language model.
