TOPIC

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ByteDance

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ByteDance

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ByteDance is best known as the owner of the global short-video and shopping platform TikTok. It also operates the similar Douyin app in China. Both apps have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, especially among younger people. ByteDance has been the focus of strained relations between China and the West, with policymakers in the US, Canada and Europe expressing concern that TikTok's Chinese ownership puts sensitive user data within reach of the Chinese government.

Chairman / President

Rubo Liang

CEO / Managing Director

Zhang Yiming

CFO / Finance Director

Julie Gao

Industry

IT / Tech / Telecoms

Website

bytedance.com

Headquarters address

Haidian, Beijing, China

Year founded

2012

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ByteDance

(字节跳动)

Can China’s AI strategy challenge India’s reign as ‘office of the world’?

Beijing’s ambition to move up the value chain could see it becoming a major exporter of digital services, AI to global high-end providers.

China’s humanoid robot sales to double this year as costs fall: Morgan Stanley

China’s cloud giants race to support Moltbot, the ‘AI that actually does things’

Beijing weighs H200 imports amid uncertainty for China tech giants

More than 400,000 H200 chips reportedly approved for ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent as China balances AI needs with tech self-reliance push.

Price rises on horizon for Chinese cloud firms after Google, AWS set new rates

Surging AI workloads, memory prices push Chinese cloud providers to consider increases after global peers act.

TikTok cites glitch as California probes alleged Trump-critical censorship

Governor Gavin Newsom launches state review after reports of blocked posts, as TikTok blames a data-centre outage days after its US deal.

How China’s AI video generator Kling challenges Google’s Veo, OpenAI’s Sora

With Kuaishou’s tool headed for US$240 million in annual revenue, the firm is one of the world’s most undervalued AI stocks, JPMorgan says.

Tencent’s Pony Ma teases new AI social feature for Yuanbao app

The Shenzhen-based firm is sharpening its AI strategy and talent pipeline, after acknowledging rivals are reshaping the pace of development.

Chinese tech giants Tencent and Baidu join fight for Spring Festival spotlight

The two companies launch digital red packet campaigns following tie-up moves by ByteDance and Alibaba with CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala.

Jensen Huang celebrates Lunar New Year with Nvidia employees in Shanghai

CEO of world’s most valuable company receives rock-star welcome as Beijing appears ready to allow imports of the H200 GPU to resume.

Who are the owners of the new TikTok US entity?

Private equity firms, tech giants and existing ByteDance backers make up the investor group behind the newly created US venture.

TikTok US joint venture seen resembling Apple’s China iCloud deal

ByteDance retains algorithms and intellectual property rights and remains the largest single shareholder of the new joint venture.

TikTok confirms deal to create new US venture, averting shutdown by a few hours

Beijing has not officially confirmed the agreement to secure the platform’s future for 170 million Americans.

Canada court overturns government order to shut down TikTok’s operations

The decision comes as Mark Carney seeks closer ties to China to offset the effect of Trump’s tariffs.

AI shaping world’s biggest infrastructure buildout: Nvidia CEO

Each country should build their own AI system, incorporating its own language and culture into the AI models, Huang says at the WEF in Davos.

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Opinion | From tea to TikTok: the middleman’s return is reshaping China trade

The old Canton system is re-emerging in a new guise as the likes of TikTok and Starbucks look to middlemen to navigate a divided global economy.

Zhipu AI breaks US chip reliance with first major model trained on Huawei stack

Zhipu claims GLM-Image achieved industry-leading scores among open-source models for text rendering and Chinese character generation.

Video-generation boom sees China’s Kling AI post US$240 million revenue run rate

Kling AI is widely adopted in the fields of marketing and e-commerce, as well as in films, television and animation, owner Kuaishou says.

US government approves Nvidia H200 chip exports to China

Trump administration on Tuesday gave the green light to China-bound sales of Nvidia’s second most powerful AI chips.

Australian social media ban: Meta shuts 550,000 children’s accounts

Australia’s ban on social media usage for under 16s, a world’s first, came into effect on December 10.

Being Chinese | Where do lonely hearts in China go now? Late-night live streams

I was swiping past the noise on Douyin when a calm, warm voice stopped me. So began my evenings in the world of companionship live streams.

China semiconductor expert suggests vigilance in buying Nvidia’s H200 AI chips

The US has an inconsistent stance on advanced chips, alternating between limited easing and renewed pressure, Wei Shaojun says.

ByteDance boosts Shenzhen presence with ‘second headquarters’ for Douyin unit

The Chinese short video giant’s new base in Nanshan district was announced by the city’s publicity department on Tuesday.

China’s DeepSeek adds advanced ‘thinking’ feature amid buzz over next model

Hangzhou-based AI start-up installs ‘interleaved thinking’ as monthly users surge 90 per cent to nearly 131.5 million.

It’s HAL out there: Tencent AI chatbot tells user to ‘get lost’ in rare outburst

In a moment echoing the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tencent’s Yuanbao chatbot has been accused of losing its temper with a user.

California progressive to lead Democrats on influential House China panel

Ro Khanna to replace Illinois Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is making a Senate run, on the House Select Committee monitoring China.

DeepSeek pitches new route to scale AI, but researchers call for more testing

DeepSeek’s proposed ‘mHC’ design could change how AI models are trained, but experts caution it still needs to prove itself at scale.

China takes confident strides to develop more AI innovation in 2026

‘China’s tech innovation is poised for policy-driven growth in 2026, with AI placed at the centre of the country’s economic agenda,’ NYU’s Winston Ma says.

Opinion | From tea to TikTok: the middleman’s return is reshaping China trade