ByteDance taps Nvidia’s top AI chips in $2.5 bln overseas compute push

Beijing — ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, is building large-scale computing capacity using advanced chips from Nvidia outside China to support its global artificial intelligence development, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

According to the report, ByteDance is collaborating with Southeast Asian cloud provider Aolani Cloud to deploy around 500 Nvidia Blackwell computing systems in Malaysia, incorporating roughly 36,000 B200 chips.

The computing infrastructure project could cost more than $2.5 billion, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Aolani Cloud currently operates hardware worth about $100 million, according to the report, meaning the proposed deployment would represent a major expansion of its existing capacity.

ByteDance plans to use the new computing resources to advance AI research and development outside China and to meet rising demand from international customers for artificial intelligence services.

The arrangement reflects how global technology companies are structuring data infrastructure to comply with export controls governing the sale of advanced semiconductors.

An Nvidia spokesperson said current export regulations allow cloud infrastructure to be built and operated outside countries subject to restrictions.

“By design, the export rules allow clouds to be built and operated outside controlled countries. Winning the business of those clouds will bring tens of billions of dollars and high paying jobs home,” the spokesperson said.