ByteDance, the powerhouse behind TikTok, is intensifying its focus on AI by collaborating with Chinese domestic chipmaker Huawei. As reported by Reuters, the company is now utilizing Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip to develop new AI models, moving away from US suppliers like Nvidia due to ongoing trade restrictions.
AI has become indispensable across multiple sectors, including gaming, e-commerce, and social media. By harnessing AI, companies can improve their services with tailored models that enhance decision-making through sophisticated pattern recognition.
ByteDance’s new AI project aims to create a model using Huawei’s chips, following the success of its widely-used large-language model, Doubao. However, this forthcoming model is anticipated to have lower computational power compared to Doubao.
At present, ByteDance primarily employs the Ascend 910B chip for inference tasks, where AI models make predictions. However, the development of new AI models demands significantly greater computational resources, posing a challenge since Huawei’s chips don’t quite match the performance of Nvidia’s leading options.
Despite ordering a substantial number of Ascend chips, ByteDance has encountered supply issues, receiving fewer than 30,000 units this year, which has hindered its AI development progress.
ByteDance continues to be a key customer of Huawei’s AI chips and is also a prominent buyer of Nvidia’s H20 AI chip, which is specifically tailored for the Chinese market. Furthermore, the company relies on Nvidia’s cloud-computing services in Asia, supported by partnerships with Microsoft.
As the appetite for AI grows—evidenced by millions of users engaging with ByteDance’s chatbot—the company is determined to advance its AI strategies despite facing supply chain hurdles.
