By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s ByteDance is working with U.S. chip designer Broadcom to develop an advanced AI processor, two sources familiar with the matter said, a move that would help the TikTok owner secure sufficient supplies of high-end chips in a context of US-Chinese tensions.
The 5-nanometer chip – a custom product known as an application-specific integrated chip (ASIC) – would comply with US export restrictions and the manufacturing work would be outsourced to Taiwan’s TSMC, the officials added. sources.
There have been no publicly announced chip development collaborations between Chinese and U.S. companies involving 5nm or higher technology since Washington introduced export controls for cutting-edge semiconductors in 2022. US-China agreements in the sector generally involve much less sophisticated technologies.
ByteDance’s tie-up with Broadcom, an existing business partner, would help reduce procurement costs and ensure a stable supply of high-end chips, said the sources, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the semiconductor problems in China.
TSMC is not expected to start manufacturing the new chip this year, however, they said. One said that while design work is well underway, the “tapeout” – which marks the end of the design phase and the start of manufacturing – has not yet started.
ByteDance and Broadcom did not respond to repeated requests for comment. TSMC declined to comment.
Like many global tech companies, ByteDance has launched a major generative artificial intelligence initiative, but the company and its Chinese peers face a far more limited supply of AI chips than their foreign counterparts.
Nvidia’s most advanced chipsets are out of reach due to U.S. export controls aimed at hindering the Chinese military’s breakthroughs in AI and supercomputing. Competition for U.S. chips developed specifically for the Chinese market as well as those from rival Huawei, one of China’s few AI accelerator makers, is fierce.
ByteDance and Broadcom have been business partners since at least 2022. The Chinese company purchased the American company’s high-performance 5nm Tomahawk switch chip as well as its Bailly switch for AI computing clusters, Broadcom said in public statements.
Securing AI chips is crucial for ByteDance to make its algorithms more powerful. In addition to TikTok and the Chinese version of the short video app called Douyin, ByteDance operates a range of popular apps, including a ChatGPT-like chatbot service called Doubao, which has 26 million users.
To support its AI efforts, ByteDance has stockpiled Nvidia chips, according to another person briefed on the matter.
This includes the A100 and H100 chips that were available before the first round of U.S. sanctions took effect, as well as the A800 and H800 chips that Nvidia made for the Chinese market but were also subsequently restricted, the person said. , adding that ByteDance had allocated $2 billion for Nvidia purchases. chips last year.
ByteDance also bought Huawei’s Ascend 910B chips last year, two separate sources with knowledge of the matter said.
Bytedance currently has hundreds of semiconductor-related job openings, including 15 for ASIC chip designers, according to checks of its website.
It has also poached executives from other Chinese AI chip companies, according to one of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing and Reuters staff; editing by Miyoung Kim and Edwina Gibbs)
