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Chinese technology giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding have purchased a substantial number of graphics processing units (GPUs) from TikTok owner ByteDance, which previously stockpiled about 100 billion yuan (US$13.7 billion) worth of chips, according to a report by business news outlet Caijing.
Social media and video gaming giant Tencent purchased about 2 billion yuan worth of GPUs – primarily Nvidia’s H20 chips – in the first quarter to support the development of artificial intelligence (AI), including its ChatGPT-like application Yuanbao. E-commerce giant Alibaba, which owns the Post, acquired GPUs from ByteDance for similar reasons, Caijing reported on Monday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
In addition to its own usage, ByteDance makes less than 10 per cent of its total computing power inventory available for sale, generating revenue for its cloud computing unit, Volcano Engine, according to the report.
The news comes amid surging demand for computing power, driven by rapid AI adoption and tighter US export restrictions, which have made access to advanced semiconductor technologies more difficult for Chinese companies.
Nvidia’s H20 chip, which is slower than the H100 and next-generation Blackwell chips, was until recently the most powerful AI processor that the company was legally permitted to sell in China under US restrictions on exporting the chipmaker’s most advanced tech on national security grounds. Nvidia said this month that it now also required approval to export H20 GPUs.
Chinese firms – including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent – ordered at least US$16 billion worth of Nvidia’s H20 chips in the first quarter, according to a report by tech news outlet The Information. Many of these orders were for an upgraded version that integrated the high-bandwidth memory used in Nvidia’s Blackwell series, the report said.
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