TikTok‘s Chinese parent ByteDance reportedly plans to develop a new AI model using chips from fellow Chinese company Huawei Technologies.
Earlier, ByteDance’s AI projects used NVIDIA’s H20 AI chips, which were designed for the Chinese market and avoided the trade restrictions the US government placed in 2022. Chinese customers were only allowed to purchase select models of AI chips, an attempt to slow down Chinese technological advancement, pushing ByteDance to seek domestic suppliers.
AI has become central to the technology industry, with firms in sectors as varied as gaming and e-commerce differentiating offerings through the integration of custom AI models—programs that employ pattern recognition to make decisions.
AI, nowadays, is key to the technology industry and its subsectors. Innovators in almost every business area (think gaming, e-commerce) are using custom AI models as a source of competitive differentiation. Such models rely on pattern recognition to make decisions.
ByteDance is reportedly planning to train the large-language AI using Huawei‘s Ascend 910B chip. Another source confirmed ByteDance‘s plans for a new AI model but was unable to confirm whether it would be built with Huawei chips.
Currently, ByteDance employs the Ascend 910B chip for less demanding inference tasks, where pre-trained AI models make predictions. The company has ordered more than 100,000 Ascend 910B chips this year but has received fewer than 30,000 as of July, a pace too slow to meet company needs.
The limited supply and computing power of Huawei’s chips, compared to Nvidia’s China-available chips, have prevented ByteDance from setting a timeline for the new AI model.
Training AI models is far more demanding and requires huge amounts of data, necessitating the use of ultra-high-performance chips such as Nvidia’s premium graphics processing units.
The new model’s capability and complexity, measured by its computing parameters, will be less powerful than ByteDance’s existing AI model Doubao, according to one of the sources.
“The entire premise here is wrong. No new model is being developed,” said ByteDance spokesman Michael Hughes.
Huawei, however, did not reply to Reuters’ requests for comment.
ByteDance‘s current AI technology powers its flagship large-language model, launched in August 2023 and released as the chatbot Doubao. This month, ByteDance introduced two video-focused Doubao models to compete with OpenAI.
Key Highlights:
- ByteDance’s New AI Model: ByteDance reportedly plans to develop a new AI model using Huawei’s Ascend 910B chips, moving away from Nvidia’s H20 chips due to US trade restrictions.
- Chip Supply Challenge: ByteDance has ordered over 100,000 Ascend 910B chips but received fewer than 30,000, slowing progress on the new AI model.
- AI Model Development: The new AI model is expected to be less powerful than ByteDance’s existing Doubao model, with no official timeline due to chip supply issues.
- ByteDance’s AI Growth: ByteDance’s current AI, including the Doubao chatbot, powers its large-language models and competes with OpenAI in video-based AI solutions.