Exclusive scoop: ByteDance partners with Huawei to develop AI chips, challenging industry leader Nvidia. Gain insights on this bold move into the lucrative AI hardware market.
According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance intends to create an AI model that is predominantly trained using chips from Huawei Technologies, a country that is home to the social media behemoth due to U.S. limits on imports of chips.
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Since the United States began limiting exports of cutting-edge AI processors in 2022, such as those from industry leader Nvidia, that company has expanded to include domestic suppliers of AI chips and expedited its own development.
AI has become crucial to the technology industry, with companies in areas as diverse as gaming and e-commerce distinguishing their offers by integrating unique AI models – algorithms that use pattern recognition to make choices.
The insiders, who wished to remain anonymous since the idea is proprietary, stated that ByteDance’s next move in the race against artificial intelligence is to develop a large-language AI model using Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip.
A fourth individual stated that ByteDance is developing a new AI model, but they were unable to confirm if Huawei chips will be used.
As stated by the three individuals and an unidentified source, ByteDance now employs the Ascend 910B mostly for less computationally demanding inference activities, or prediction tasks involving pre-trained AI models.
Large volumes of data are needed for training AI models, which makes ultra-high-performance computers like Nvidia’s flagship graphics processing units necessary.
According to one of the sources, the new model’s computational parameters will indicate its competence and complexity, making it less potent than ByteDance’s current AI model, Doubao.
An inquiry for comments was not answered by ByteDance. In Washington, D.C., Michael Hughes, a representative for TikTok, stated, “The whole idea behind this is incorrect,” speaking for ByteDance. There’s no new model in development.
Strict Supply
Less than 30,000 of the greater than 100,000 Advance 910B chips that ByteDance bought this year had been delivered as of July, according to one of the sources. This pace is too slow to suit the company’s needs.
According to two sources, ByteDance has been unable to set a schedule for the new model due to supply constraints and insufficient computing capacity in comparison to Nvidia’s China-available chips.
Currently, ByteDance’s AI technology is utilized in numerous applications, including as the text-to-video tool Jimeng, and in their flagship large-language model, which was unveiled in August 2023 and renamed as chatbot Doubao. This month, in an effort to rival OpenAI, it unveiled two Doubao models with an emphasis on videos.
Since the beginning of the year, the popularity of these apps has skyrocketed, with ByteDance’s chatbot rising to become one of China’s most downloaded apps with over 10 million active users each month.
Huawei and ByteDance Join Forces: A New Challenger to Nvidia’s AI Chip Monopoly Emerges
According to the three persons, ByteDance has become one of the major users of Huawei’s AI chips due to its increased emphasis on AI.
According to two of the people, it is also the largest purchaser of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence processor, which the American chipmaker customized for the Chinese market in reaction to trade restrictions. According to two different sources, the owner of TikTok is also Microsoft’s largest customer in Asian for Nvidia chips that are available through cloud computing.
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