ByteDance and Broadcom Team Up to Develop AI Chips

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is teaming up with American chipmaker Broadcom to develop a custom AI processor.

This new chip will be a 5-nanometer design, crafted to comply with U.S. export regulations and will be produced by TSMC in Taiwan. The goal of this collaboration is to secure a steady supply of high-performance AI chips and cut down on costs.

This isn’t the first time ByteDance and Broadcom have worked together; they already have a history of collaboration in other technological areas.

ByteDance has been diving deep into generative AI, incorporating it into TikTok with features like digital avatars. However, political restrictions have limited the Chinese company’s access to AI chips, putting it at a disadvantage compared to international rivals.

Last year, ByteDance spent $2 billion on Nvidia chips, a small amount compared to what Meta, another major player in the social media landscape, has invested.

Meta, one of Nvidia’s biggest customers, plans to deploy 340,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs and around 600,000 GPUs in total by the end of this year. This massive investment in AI hardware highlights the importance of generative AI for social media services, a race ByteDance risks losing without enough computing power.

Other tech giants are also stepping up their AI chip game. Meta is not only investing heavily in Nvidia GPUs but is also developing its own AI chips, with its “Artemis” chip set to go into production this year for use in its data centers. Similarly, Microsoft has created its own AI chips, Azure Maia, and an Arm-based CPU, Azure Cobalt, for its cloud infrastructure.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is exploring the development of its own AI chips. They are working with RainAI on a neuromorphic processing unit (NPU) and CEO Sam Altman is reportedly seeking significant funding to establish a global chip infrastructure as an alternative to Nvidia.

In summary, ByteDance’s partnership with Broadcom to develop a new AI chip is a strategic move to bolster its AI capabilities and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. With production beginning next year, ByteDance aims to overcome the current limitations imposed by political restrictions and secure a more reliable and cost-effective supply of high-performance AI chips.

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