ByteDance said to be turning to Huawei chips to train AI model amid US curbs, sources say

ByteDance’s next step in the AI race is to use Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip to train a large language AI model, said the people

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The ByteDance office in Shanghai, China. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:11pm, 30 Sep 2024

TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance plans to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) model trained primarily with chips from compatriot Huawei Technologies, said three people familiar with the matter, as US curbs turn the social media giant homeward in search of chips.

ByteDance has diversified to domestic suppliers of chips used in artificial intelligence and accelerated development of its own since the US in 2022 started restricting exports of advanced AI chips, such as those from market leader Nvidia.

AI has become central to the technology industry with firms in sectors as varied as video gaming and e-commerce differentiating offerings through the integration of custom AI models – programs that employ pattern recognition to make decisions.

ByteDance’s next step in the AI race is to use Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip to train a large language AI model, said the people, declining to be identified as the plan is confidential.

A fourth person also said ByteDance is planning a new AI model but could not say whether it will use Huawei chips.

Huawei has been producing alternatives to Nvidia chips, used in training AI models. Photo: Bloomberg

ByteDance already uses the Ascend 910B primarily for less computationally intensive inference tasks, which involve pre-trained AI models making predictions, the three people and a separate source said.