ByteDance is close to a deal to buy custom AI chips from MediaTek for its data centers, according to Bloomberg, which would make it the second big buyer of MediaTek’s custom chips after Google. US export rules bar Chinese companies from Nvidia’s most advanced processors, but they still allow custom designs below a computing-power threshold, so ByteDance has been lining up alternative suppliers, including Qualcomm earlier this year. ByteDance needs the capacity because it’s weighing up to $70 billion in data center and AI spending, more than double last year’s. For MediaTek, which expects about $2 billion in AI chip sales this year, the deal would be a big step beyond phone processors.
