ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant behind TikTok, is in talks to purchase 50,000 AI chips from Iluvatar, a domestic Chinese semiconductor startup, according to reporting surfaced by MSN.
The deal, if completed, would represent a significant order for Iluvatar, a relatively young player in China's homegrown chip industry. Details of the agreement's timeline or pricing were not disclosed in the report.
The talks come as U.S. export restrictions have increasingly limited Chinese companies' access to advanced semiconductors from American firms like Nvidia. That regulatory pressure has pushed major Chinese tech players to scout alternatives from domestic suppliers, accelerating investment in China's own chip ecosystem.
Iluvatar — formally known as Iluvatar CoreX — has been positioning itself as one of several Chinese startups trying to fill the gap left by restricted access to Western chips. A 50,000-chip order from a company as large as ByteDance would be a meaningful validation of that effort.
ByteDance has been aggressively expanding its AI infrastructure to power products ranging from its recommendation algorithms to generative AI tools competing in a crowded global market.
If the deal closes, it signals how U.S. chip restrictions are actively reshaping the global AI hardware landscape — pushing China's biggest AI spenders toward homegrown silicon and potentially accelerating the maturity of domestic alternatives.