ByteDance denies cooperation with TSMC to develop AI chips

On September 19th, ByteDance clarified recent media rumors about its cooperation with TSMC to develop AI chips, clearly stating that the relevant reports were not true.

ByteDance indicated that while the company has made some layout in the field of chip technology, it is still in the preliminary exploration stage, mainly focusing on optimizing the cost structure of recommendation and advertising businesses, and emphasized that all R&D activities strictly comply with international trade regulations.

Previously, some media reports disclosed that ByteDance had joined hands with Broadcom to jointly develop an AI processor based on 5nm technology, with TSMC planned to be responsible for manufacturing. Although the design progress was described as smooth, the critical "tape-out" stage, marking the completion of the design and entering the production phase, had not yet officially started.

In fact, rumors of ByteDance manufacturing chips have been circulating in the market since 2022. Although the company has clarified multiple times, it is an indisputable fact that ByteDance has continued to invest in the chip field.

As early as 2018, Yang Zhenyuan, vice president of ByteDance, revealed to the media that they would take action in the chip field, "ByteDance has the largest number of user-uploaded videos in the world that need to be analyzed and processed, and there is a large amount of chip procurement and application. Currently, we are actively seeking breakthroughs in related chip fields."

It was not until the second half of 2020 that ByteDance officially formed a chip team, but with a streamlined staff. In 2021, the chip team began to expand rapidly, and it was in this year that ByteDance officially disclosed the formation of the team and the exploration of AI chip business externally.

However, compared to the thousands of people in the chip teams of companies like Alibaba and Huawei, ByteDance's chip team only has about 300 people as of 2023. Nevertheless, in the era of AI, ByteDance has to pay attention to self-developed chips, and it is not impossible for ByteDance to choose to expand its team scope.