According to a report by Reuters on Monday, Chinese tech company ByteDance is collaborating with American chip manufacturer Broadcom to develop an advanced AI processor.
This move aims to help ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, ensure a stable supply of AI chips, especially in the face of stringent US restrictions on chip exports to China.
The 5-nanometer chip will comply with US export restrictions and is expected to be outsourced for production to the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, TSMC.
ByteDance has already been collaborating with Broadcom, having purchased multiple AI-related chips from the American company over the past two years.
The deepening cooperation between the two companies reflects the efforts of Chinese tech firms to ensure the supply of advanced AI chips after the US prevented several leading chip manufacturers, notably Nvidia, from selling their most advanced AI technologies to China.
Although Nvidia is still allowed to sell less advanced AI chips in China, these chips have met with relatively lukewarm market reception compared to products from local competitors like Huawei.
Over the past year, there has been a surge in the development of generative AI spurred by applications such as OpenAI's Chat GPT. ByteDance is also reportedly developing its own generative AI platform.
AI has consistently been a major source of demand for global chip manufacturers. Earlier this year, Broadcom raised its annual revenue forecast, anticipating an improvement driven by AI-related demand.
