Chinese internet giant Baite Dance has created some of the world's most popular apps: Tiktok and in China, Duin and Toutiao.
In the US, Tiktok claims 170 million users. However, in China, around 700 million people use the domestic version of Douyin and scroll through the headlines of Toutiao, a news app of 300 million. Every video viewed or posted by Bytedance users provides the company with another data point about how people use the internet. For years, Baitedan has applied its rich information to make the app more attractive and improve its ability to recommend content to keep users on a hook.
Bytedance also uses data as a link pin for the growing business of artificial intelligence. The company is investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure needed to strengthen its AI systems, build huge data centers in China and Southeast Asia, and purchase advanced semiconductors. Bytedance is also available in AI that hires spree.
Bytedance is best known outside of China in Tiktok. Tiktok is so popular that at least 20 governments have adopted a partial ban on concerns about national security and impact on public opinion.
Concerns about how Bytedans uses data have led to Washington lawmakers trying to force Tiktok to sell its US business. On Friday, President Trump extended the looming deadline.
However, in China, that data has helped all data to expand business far beyond social media and gain an edge in the global race to build advanced AI technology.
Wei Sun, principal analyst for artificial intelligence at Beijing's Counterpoint Research, said:
Beijing officials have urged Chinese tech companies to become independent from entertainment apps to what the government considers as existential goals, namely cutting-edge technologies that also have military uses such as semiconductors, supercomputers and artificial intelligence.
Bytedance accepted its mission. Last year, the company spent around $11 billion on infrastructure such as data centers, networking equipment and computer chips, according to a report from Chinese financial company Zheshang Securities.
The Biden administration has set rules to prevent Chinese companies from accessing such types of chips, especially those made by Silicon Valley giant Nvidia. But Beitedan has found a way to get the computing power needed to train a system. Partly by using data centers outside of China, and perhaps by purchasing chips made by Chinese chip makers like Huawei and Cambricon, according to analysts.
These Chinese-made chips can't do everything Nvidia chips can, but they work enough for companies like Bytedance to provide AI services to people and businesses in China. Lian Jye Su, an analyst at market research firm Omdia, said Chinese tech companies are “encouraged to adopt local options” to buy chips.
All this spending has generally helped to become one of China's most popular artificial intelligence apps. Doubao, a chatbot, attracted 60 million users in the market last year within its first three months. This is China's most popular chatbot, beating rivals made by Baidu and Alibaba-backed Moonshot, and this year's startup Deepshek has released its own release.
Bytedance showed how closely the app ecosystem is connected to AI efforts when it recently became possible to chat with Doubao within the Douyin app.
In 2021, Bytedance launched Volcano Engine. Tiktok, Douyin, Toutiao are businesses that other companies pay to use highly addictive technologies, and tools for analyzing algorithms that recommend information and videos.
Some of these services were natural applications of technologies developed for Douyin and Tiktok. This seems to be a filter that allows people to look much older or superimpose their sparkly hearts on their faces. Bytedance used experience in creating these filters to help companies like Haier and Hisens develop movement tracking technology for gesture-controlled home appliances such as smart TVs.
GAC Group, one of China's largest electric car manufacturers, uses volcanic engines to translate and manage data from vehicles sold outside of China. And last year, Mercedes-Benz said it would use volcanic engines with Chinese in-vehicle voice assistants and navigation systems.
Bytedance did not respond to requests for comment.
Company recruitment shows that the ordinance employs hundreds of AI-related roles. The company recently instructed its engineering teams to focus on milestones that tech companies like Openai, Google and Deepseek are also chasing. This creates an AI system as smart or clever as humans, and is called artificial general information.
Many Chinese companies have launched AI projects, but a much smaller number has the resources to invest in the personnel and computing power needed to advance the technology. Some experts hope that somewhere in the world, research teams will create this kind of system within next year or two.
Claire Who contributed to his research from Seoul.
