Everybody wants a piece of the AI action in 2024. Everybody. TikTok parent company ByteDance is reportedly setting up a partnership with American firm Broadcom to design and produce its own AI chipset. The move is in response to commercial tensions between the US and China.
The 5-nanometre application-specific integrated chip would be developed with the assistance of Broadcom, with ByteDance getting Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) to perform the actual fabrication. At least, that’s the word according to several sources.
TikTok AI?
Everybody needs, or thinks they need, AI-capable chipsets and TikTok’s overlord is no exception. And since the company is already in several forms of hot water with the American government, a situation that might lead to Huawei levels of import restrictions, a deal with an existing partner to secure essential hardware makes sense. The trick is getting ByteDance (or Broadcom or TSMC) to admit that the deal is going forward.
The unnamed sources who spoke to Reuters claim that there’s unlikely to be much movement on the apparent deal this year. A chip is in the design phases but hasn’t yet moved to manufacturing, which means the world won’t see any new internally-powered AI features on TikTok for a while.
ByteDance operates several different services beyond the teenage mindwipe app popular around the world, including Doubao, which is a GPT-like service that operates in China. AI-powered dance originators on the downloadable pysop, though… we’re not sure that’s much more than a conspiracy theory. For now.