ByteDance

TikTok founder Zhang Yiming becomes Asia’s richest person

Zhang Yiming, the 43-year-old founder of ByteDance, has become Asia's richest person for the first time after his net worth crossed $105 billion, surpassing Indian industrialist Gautam Adani, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming becomes Asia’s richest person

ByteDance has signed a $29.6 billion syndicated loan with 28 banks, securing Asia's second-largest dollar-denominated borrowing of 2026 as the TikTok parent company accelerates its push into artificial intelligence infrastructure outside China.

ByteDance spins off AI drug unit that raises $290M

ByteDance has completed a $290 million fundraising for Anew Labs, its newly spun-off AI drug discovery unit headquartered in Shanghai, valuing the business at $1.5 billion in its first external funding round, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing two people with…

ByteDance’s first-half profit dips as AI spending soars

ByteDance's net profit in the first half of 2026 declined by a single-digit percentage to roughly $20 billion, even as the TikTok parent company's revenue surged approximately 30% year over year to $120 billion, according to The Information, which cited…

ByteDance readies real-time spatial video AI model

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is personally overseeing the development of an AI model designed for real-time spatial video generation, with a launch possible as soon as next month, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The move…

ByteDance readies real-time world model under Zhang Yiming

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is personally directing the development of an AI model capable of generating real-time spatial video, with a launch possible as soon as next month, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

ByteDance secures $29.6B loan to fund AI buildout

ByteDance has landed a $29.6 billion loan, Asia's second-largest dollar-denominated borrowing this year, as the TikTok parent accelerates spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. The deal nearly tripled the $10.8 billion the company raised in its last offshore facility in 2024.

Tencent exec admits AI lag, says computing power is ‘severely insufficient’

Tencent Senior Executive Vice President Tang Daosheng publicly acknowledged on Tuesday that the Chinese tech giant has fallen behind in AI, citing "severely insufficient" computing power that has hampered model training and product development. The candid admission, published in the…

Brazil fines TikTok $30M over teen data as global pressure mounts

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are confronting regulatory actions on two continents this week, agreeing to a $400 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over children's privacy violations and receiving a nearly $30 million fine from Brazil's…

ByteDance’s $20B loan draws over $30B in orders

ByteDance, the Beijing-based developer of TikTok, has attracted more than $30 billion in orders from lenders for its $20 billion syndicated loan, according to Bloomberg, a clear sign of strong appetite among global banks to finance the Chinese tech giant's…

ByteDance creates top-level AI data unit amid 10T model push

ByteDance has established a new first-tier department called "AI Data & Security," elevating the company's approach to data governance as it embarks on training what would be one of the world's largest AI models.

ByteDance training 10 trillion-parameter AI model, FT reports

ByteDance is training an artificial intelligence model with as many as 10 trillion parameters, a scale that could approach Anthropic's most advanced Mythos system, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

ByteDance bans staff from distilling US AI models

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has told employees the company will not use distillation — the practice of training AI models on the outputs of more advanced systems built by rivals — to advance its artificial intelligence capabilities, even if the…

DeepSeek, MiniMax, ByteDance unveil new AI models on same day

DeepSeek on Friday launched the public beta of its V4-Flash model's official API, upgrading its agent capabilities and adding native support for the Responses API format and Codex compatibility. The release came as several other Chinese AI firms unveiled new…

ByteDance folds Lark into AI units as revenue hits $4B

ByteDance's annualized revenue from its large language model business has reached $4 billion, making it the largest publicly known AI revenue figure among Chinese companies, according to the South China Morning Post. The milestone, based on average consumption in July…

CXMT signs $7B ByteDance deal ahead of Shanghai IPO

ChangXin Memory Technologies, China's largest DRAM manufacturer, has signed a five-year supply agreement with ByteDance worth more than $7 billion, according to a Reuters investigation published Thursday. The deal cements CXMT's transformation from a low-cost alternative into a supplier capable…

TikTok U.S. security chief to testify before House China Committee on Sept. 15

TikTok's U.S. chief security officer, Will Farrell, will testify before the U.S. House Select Committee on China on September 15, a congressional aide confirmed on Tuesday, setting up the first public appearance by a TikTok U.S. executive in the House…

ByteDance targets 2027 for in-house CPU amid Qualcomm talks

ByteDance aims to finalize the design of its next-generation in-house central processing unit by early 2027 at the latest, targeting mass production and deployment in the second half of that year to fuel its expanding artificial intelligence ambitions, according to…

ByteDance seeks record $20B offshore loan for AI push

ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, is in preliminary talks with banks for a loan of approximately $20 billion that would represent its largest-ever offshore borrowing, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. The move comes as the Beijing-based firm dramatically…

ByteDance launches Doubao 2.1 Pro, claims it beats Claude Opus 4.6

ByteDance unveiled its next-generation AI model family at the 2026 Volcano Engine FORCE conference on Tuesday, releasing Doubao 2.1 Pro and the broader Seed 2.1 lineup as the company pushes to dominate enterprise AI deployment in China and beyond.

ByteDance in talks to buy AI chips from Chinese suppliers

Nvidia has begun pitching its new Vera central processing unit to Chinese clients, telling them the chip could be available as early as August with orders open now, according to a Reuters report citing three people familiar with the matter.…

Netflix threatens to sue ByteDance over Seedance AI tool

Netflix has issued an ultimatum to ByteDance, threatening "immediate litigation" over the company's Seedance 2.0 AI video generator and becoming the first Hollywood studio to explicitly put legal action on the table in the escalating copyright battle.

Disney and Paramount send cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance

The Walt Disney Company has sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, accusing the Chinese tech giant of unlawfully using its intellectual property to develop the Seedance 2.0 AI video generation tool. The letter, first reported by Axios on Friday, represents…