China’s ByteDance is developing an artificial intelligence chip and is in talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture it, two people familiar with the matter said, as the TikTok parent seeks to secure supply of advanced processors.
This project could position ByteDance among a growing number of tech companies developing custom AI chips, similar to efforts by Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, to reduce dependence on external suppliers.
ByteDance aims to receive sample chips by end-March, they said. The company plans to produce at least 100,000 units of the chip, designed for AI inference tasks, this year, according to one of the sources and another person.
ByteDance has denied the reports.
Negotiations with Samsung include access to memory chip supplies that are in exceptionally short supply amid the global AI infrastructure build-out, making the deal particularly attractive, one of the sources said.
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What is ByteDance?
ByteDance is a Chinese technology company best known as the parent company of TikTok, one of the world’s most popular social media apps. Founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, ByteDance initially focused on content platforms powered by artificial intelligence, using algorithms to recommend videos, news, and other digital content to users based on their preferences. Its AI-driven platforms include Toutiao, a leading news aggregation app in China, and TikTok, which became a global phenomenon for short-form video content.
ByteDance has grown rapidly into one of the world’s most valuable tech companies, with interests spanning social media, entertainment, education, and enterprise software. The company emphasizes AI and machine learning in its products, helping tailor content and ads to user behavior. While it is headquartered in Beijing, ByteDance operates globally, with offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
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The chip project, codenamed SeedChip, is part of ByteDance’s broader push to channel resources into AI development, from chips to large language models, betting the technology will transform its business portfolio spanning short video, e-commerce and enterprise cloud services.
By potentially designing its own processors, ByteDance could gain greater control over its AI capabilities, reducing reliance on third-party suppliers and global supply chains. This could allow the company to tailor its hardware and software more closely to its specific needs, optimizing performance for applications such as short-form video recommendation, large language models, and enterprise services.
If successful, the initiative may strengthen ByteDance’s position in the global tech landscape, aligning it with other major players investing in custom AI chips. The move also reflects a broader strategic focus on combining content creation, algorithmic personalization, and hardware development to capture more value across the technology stack. Even if the project faces technical or logistical challenges, it demonstrates ByteDance’s intent to diversify its technological capabilities and explore new areas of innovation.