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As if expulsion from the world’s fifth-biggest economy—and near-banishment from the largest—wasn’t enough of a business challenge, ByteDance has decided it’d like to add semiconductor R&D to its plate.
The TikTok parent company has opened dozens of chip-related job postings, Reuters reported yesterday. A source told the publication that ByteDance hopes to develop Arm-based data center chips, but that its plan is still in the early days.
Why?
- Should ByteDance get the Huawei treatment, it wants to have a contingency plan.
- This is an AI-first company at the end of the day. Specialized AI processing units have become a key priority for the R&D departments of most Big Tech companies.
- That’s especially true for Chinese tech companies. The country is still highly reliant on importing semiconductors, although Beijing is spending heavily to establish end-to-end technological self-sufficiency.
- ByteDance has tried its hand with hardware before.
+ While we’re here: Starting April 15, TikTok users won’t be able to opt out of personalized ad targeting (unless they’re based in the EU).