ByteDance is reportedly negotiating to buy AI chips from MediaTek for use in its data centers. Neither the talks nor any terms have been confirmed, and no confirmed reports of the negotiations had surfaced as of mid-October 2026.
The TikTok parent has been actively diversifying where its AI chips come from. The driver is US export restrictions that limit its access to advanced Nvidia GPUs, the processors that power most large-scale AI training and inference.
In June 2026, ByteDance was in talks for 50,000 AI chips from Chinese vendor Iluvatar CoreX, mainly to support its Doubao AI assistant.
In May 2026, Qualcomm was reported to have signed a deal with ByteDance for millions of ASICs aimed at AI workloads.
source: cryptobriefing