The Chinese tech giant ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, plans to make an astronomical investment in boosting its AI capabilities: in 2026, the company aims to purchase Nvidia H200 graphics processors worth 100 billion yuan (approximately $14 billion). This marks a significant increase compared to 2025’s 85 billion yuan.
ByteDance is a key player in the AI sector in China, standing as a major competitor to Tencent.
Although China remains cut off from the latest Nvidia Blackwell architecture chips, the Trump administration recently permitted the sale of Hopper architecture H200 GPUs to Beijing.
Following this move, Chinese authorities held emergency meetings with tech giants, including ByteDance, to assess equipment needs and approve deals. Officially, China is striving for technological independence and prohibits the use of foreign components in critical data centers.
Nonetheless, ByteDance itself, in collaboration with Broadcom and TSMC, is developing its own AI accelerators, expected to debut in 2026. While its own chips are not yet ready, ByteDance is currently relying on Nvidia’s proven solutions.
