ByteDance builds custom CPU chips on Arm and RISC-V to power expanding AI infrastructure

Exclusive: ByteDance developing custom CPU chips to support AI rollout, sources say

BEIJING/PARIS, May 28 (Reuters) - Chinese technology giant ByteDance is developing its own central processing units (CPUs) to support its growing AI infrastructure needs, three people familiar with the matter said, as surging chip prices and prolonged supply shortages constrain its expansion plans. The move underscores the industry's rapid shift toward "inference," where AI models are deployed to perform agentic tasks that demand more from CPUs, working in tandem with the graphics chips made by Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab that have dominated the AI boom. The shift has created a shortage of CPUs in recent months, and global hyperscalers including Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab are also developing their own custom CPUs to reduce costs and tailor performance to their specific workloads. It has also helped major CPU makers Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab and AMD (AMD.O), opens new tab emerge as leading challengers to Nvidia's AI ⁠dominance. ByteDance, the parent of short video platform TikTok, is targeting deployment of its proprietary CPU in its own servers and data centres to support internal operations, as it prepares a massive rollout of agent-based products including its Coze platform, the first source said. The Beijing-based company has approached several external partners to assist with the effort, and those partners are expected to contribute not only to the chip's design work but also to help secure manufacturing capacity at foundries, the sources added. The project remains at an early stage, the first source said. They declined to be named, as the plan is not public. ByteDance did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. CPU SHORTAGE ByteDance's move places it alongside a growing cohort of tech companies that have concluded the economics of custom chips outweigh the complexity of designing them. It is pursuing two chip architecture tracks for its CPU development -- one based on SoftBank-owned Arm and another on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, as it ⁠weighs which design best suits its long-term data centre requirements, the sources said. Developing two designs simultaneously is a common hedge for technology giants, as it allows them to test their options before committing to a costly, large-scale manufacturing run. Arm did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The push to develop proprietary silicon comes as Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab has warned Chinese customers of server CPU delivery lead times of up to six months, Reuters reported in February. Intel said last month that demand for its CPU from AI firms was so strong ⁠in the first quarter that it sold even chips it had originally written off. AMD (AMD.O), opens new tab CEO Lisa Su warned last week that the global CPU market is "tight," with demand outpacing forecasts and supply constraints expected to persist. ByteDance currently sources CPUs from Intel and AMD, and they have raised prices significantly, with quarter-over-quarter increases ranging from 10% to as much as 35% ⁠in recent months, two of the sources said, prompting ByteDance to accelerate its push for in-house alternatives. Intel said it had updated prices on some of its products to reflect sustained demand, increased component and material costs and evolving market dynamics. AMD did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Nvidia is expanding beyond ⁠GPUs into the CPU market, and its CEO Jensen Huang hopes its new "Vera" central processors will give the firm access to a new $200 billion market. It unveiled a new central processor and AI system built on technology from Groq - a chip startup specialising in inference - in March, making moves to defend its position in the AI chip market. Reporting by Liam Mo in Beijing and Fanny Potkin in Paris; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Jamie Freed Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

ByteDance is building its own CPUs on Arm and RISC-V to feed its AI infrastructure

The TikTok parent is developing custom data-centre processors on two parallel architectures as Intel and AMD push prices up 10-35% a quarter and US export controls bite. ByteDance is developing its own central processing units to power the data centres behind its expanding AI infrastructure, according to a Reuters report on Thursday citing people familiar with the company's chip programme. The TikTok parent is pursuing two parallel design tracks, one based on Arm and another on the open-source RISC-V instruction-set architecture, while it works out which design best fits its longer-term needs. The decision lands inside an unusually busy week for the company's chip-diversification strategy. The drivers are commercial and geopolitical at once. Intel and AMD, which currently supply most of ByteDance's server-CPU footprint, have raised data-centre-grade processor prices by between 10% and 35% in successive recent quarters, according to the Reuters reporting. ByteDance's 2026 AI-infrastructure budget reportedly grew 25% to around 200 billion yuan ($29.4bn), a level that makes the procurement gap from those price increases material at group-level economics. Building in-house has gone from a theoretical optimisation to a balance-sheet imperative. The Arm-and-RISC-V dual-track is the part that signals how seriously ByteDance is taking the chip work. Arm-based server CPUs are the proven path, with Amazon's Graviton, Microsoft's Cobalt and Google's Axion all in production. RISC-V, the royalty-free instruction-set originally developed at Berkeley, is less proven at server scale but is increasingly favoured inside China because it sidesteps the licensing-and-export-control exposure that comes with Arm's UK-headquartered, Softbank-owned IP. Chinese policymakers have explicitly endorsed RISC-V as a strategic-autonomy alternative; Beijing has been hardening its broader chip-sovereignty posture through 2026. The wider ByteDance chip programme is now visibly multi-pronged. The company reached an agreement earlier this week with Qualcomm to supply millions of application-specific integrated circuits for AI data-centre inference, alongside Qualcomm helping ByteDance bring its own ASIC design through to production. ByteDance has been instructed by Beijing's National Development and Reform Commission to reject US-origin capital in funding rounds without clearance. The travel restrictions on senior AI talent that expanded across the private sector this month apply to ByteDance staff alongside DeepSeek, Moonshot and StepFun. The custom-CPU programme is the same strategic posture extended into general-purpose server silicon. The competitive read for Intel and AMD is the harder one. The hyperscaler defections of the past five years (AWS, Microsoft, Google) have already shifted a meaningful share of the cloud-CPU market away from the x86 incumbents toward custom Arm silicon. ByteDance's entry, if successful, removes another large customer from the x86 pool. The pricing-pressure spiral runs in both directions: higher x86 prices accelerate hyperscaler custom-CPU adoption, and reduced hyperscaler purchases reduce the volume base over which x86 vendors can amortise their fab costs, which raises prices further. ByteDance, for its size, is closer to a hyperscaler than to a standard enterprise customer. What remains unclear is the production-foundry side. Custom CPUs need leading-edge fabrication; TSMC handles most hyperscaler designs at 4nm and below, but US export controls on advanced nodes for Chinese customers complicate the path. SMIC, China's domestic leading-edge foundry, has reached 7nm in production but lags TSMC by roughly two nodes. ByteDance's chip programme will have to make peace with the production-node reality even after it solves the design problem, which is the part the Reuters reporting did not yet address. ByteDance has not commented on the design programme or projected first-silicon timelines. The company's Beijing operations declined to confirm or deny the Reuters reporting.

ByteDance developing custom CPU chips to support AI rollout, sources say

BEIJING/PARIS, May 28 (Reuters) - Chinese technology giant ByteDance is developing its own central processing units (CPUs) to support its growing AI infrastructure needs, three people familiar with the matter said, as surging chip prices and prolonged supply shortages constrain its expansion plans. The move underscores the industry's rapid shift toward "inference," where AI models are deployed to perform agentic tasks that demand more from CPUs, working in tandem with the graphics chips made by Nvidia that have dominated the AI boom. The shift has created a shortage of CPUs in recent months, and global hyperscalers including Alphabet's Google, Amazon and Microsoft are also developing their own custom CPUs to reduce costs and tailor performance to their specific workloads. It has also helped major CPU makers Intel and AMD emerge as leading challengers to Nvidia's AI dominance. ByteDance, the parent of short video platform TikTok, is targeting deployment of its proprietary CPU in its own servers and data centres to support internal operations, as it prepares a massive rollout of agent-based products including its Coze platform, the first source said. The Beijing-based company has approached several external partners to assist with the effort, and those partners are expected to contribute not only to the chip's design work but also to help secure manufacturing capacity at foundries, the sources added. The project remains at an early stage, the first source said. They declined to be named, as the plan is not public. ByteDance did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. CPU SHORTAGE ByteDance's move places it alongside a growing cohort of tech companies that have concluded the economics of custom chips outweigh the complexity of designing them. It is pursuing two chip architecture tracks for its CPU development -- one based on SoftBank-owned Arm and another on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, as it weighs which design best suits its long-term data centre requirements, the sources said. Developing two designs simultaneously is a common hedge for technology giants, as it allows them to test their options before committing to a costly, large-scale manufacturing run. Arm did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The push to develop proprietary silicon comes as Intel has warned Chinese customers of server CPU delivery lead times of up to six months, Reuters reported in February. Intel said last month that demand for its CPU from AI firms was so strong in the first quarter that it sold even chips it had originally written off. AMD CEO Lisa Su warned last week that the global CPU market is "tight," with demand outpacing forecasts and supply constraints expected to persist. ByteDance currently sources CPUs from Intel and AMD, and they have raised prices significantly, with quarter-over-quarter increases ranging from 10% to as much as 35% in recent months, two of the sources said, prompting ByteDance to accelerate its push for in-house alternatives. Intel said it had updated prices on some of its products to reflect sustained demand, increased component and material costs and evolving market dynamics. AMD did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Nvidia is expanding beyond GPUs into the CPU market, and its CEO Jensen Huang hopes its new "Vera" central processors will give the firm access to a new $200 billion market. It unveiled a new central processor and AI system built on technology from Groq - a chip startup specialising in inference - in March, making moves to defend its position in the AI chip market. (Reporting by Liam Mo in Beijing and Fanny Potkin in Paris; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Jamie Freed) By Liam Mo and Fanny Potkin