ByteDance appears to be crossing US borders to buy Nvidia chips: Report

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has big plans to buy Nvidia chips in 2025 – despite US restrictions.

ByteDance plans to use it $7 billion in chips in 2025according to a report by The Information, citing internal sources. If ByteDance follows suit, it will become one of the world’s largest owners of Nvidia chips, despite US efforts to prevent Chinese companies from buying such US AI chips.

In 2022, the US announced export restrictions for some types of AI chips to countries, including China, where ByteDance is located. These restrictions have been found solid several times since then.

ByteDance is technically complying with these restrictions using an inbound method: The company does not bring chips to China and instead stores them in data centers located in other regions such as Southeast Asia, according to a report by The Information. This does not technically violate US law.

ByteDance runs Doubao, China’s “hottest” AI chatbot with 51 million users, according to South China Morning Post.

TechCrunch reached out to ByteDance for more information.