By Eduardo Bautista
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s ByteDance is working with U.S. chip designer Broadcom on developing an advanced artificial intelligence processor, two sources familiar with the matter said, a move that would help TikTok’s owner secure sufficient supply of high-end chips amid tensions between the United States and China.
The 5-nanometer chip, a custom product known as an application-specific integrated chip (ASIC), would comply with US export restrictions and manufacturing work would be outsourced to Taiwan’s TSMC, the sources added.
No chip development collaborations between Chinese and US companies involving 5nm or more advanced technology have been publicly announced since Washington introduced export controls on cutting-edge semiconductors in 2022. US-China deals in the sector generally They refer to much less sophisticated technologies.
ByteDance’s partnership 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 semiconductor issues in China.
However, TSMC is not expected to start manufacturing the new chip this year, they said. One of them said that while design work is underway, the “tapeout,” which marks the end of the design phase and the beginning of manufacturing, has not begun.
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 push into generative artificial intelligence, but the company and its Chinese peers have to contend with a much more limited supply of AI chips than their foreign counterparts.
Nvidia’s most advanced chipsets are out of reach due to US export controls aimed at impeding advances in artificial intelligence and supercomputing by the Chinese military. Competition for American chips developed specifically for the Chinese market, as well as those from rival Huawei, one of the few Chinese makers of AI accelerators, is fierce.
ByteDance and Broadcom have been business partners since at least 2022. The Chinese firm bought the U.S. company’s 5nm Tomahawk high-performance switch chip as well as its Bailly switch for AI computer clusters, Broadcom said in public statements.
Protecting 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 variety of popular apps, including a chatbot service similar to ChatGPT called Doubao, which has 26 million users.
To support its AI push, ByteDance has stockpiled Nvidia chips, according to another person briefed on the matter.
This includes the A100 and H100 chips available before the first round of US sanctions took effect, as well as the A800 and H800 chips that Nvidia made for the Chinese market but were later also restricted, the person said, adding that ByteDance allocated $2 billion for Nvidia purchases. fries 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 posted, including 15 for ASIC chip designers, according to checks on its website.
It has also been hunting senior officials at 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)