NVIDIA has now been allowed to sell NVIDIA H200 AI processing chips to companies in China, and ByteDance, the company behind short-form video platforms Douyin and TikTok, has reportedly spent $14 billion to buy the chips.
ByteDance is seen to have already introduced its own AI services through its cloud technology subsidiary Volcano Engine, which produces its own language models. So far, the company has several important clients such as China Central Television, which will hold a Spring Festival Gala event that will showcase China's technological capabilities on television.
Meanwhile, ByteDance's Doubao AI bot has also reportedly processed 50 trillion tokens per day throughout December 2025, up from 4 trillion tokens per day. Volcano Engine also has more than 100 clients that have used 1 trillion tokens so far.
What's interesting about ByteDance's latest investment is that they also have their own AI chip development team that has successfully developed AI processing chips that are comparable to the H20 chip at a cheaper price.
However, the NVIDIA H200 chip is seen as much more powerful, and it seems more worth buying now, rather than spending the time and effort to produce their own chips. However, it seems that ByteDance will still continue to develop AI processing chips for their own use.
