ByteDance Drops $2.5B+ on Nvidia Blackwell Chips — Via Malaysia
TikTok's parent is deploying 36,000 B200 chips through a Malaysian cloud partner to sidestep China export bans.
ByteDance found a workaround. The TikTok parent company is teaming up with Aolani Cloud to stand up 500 Nvidia Blackwell systems in Malaysia, packing roughly 36,000 B200 chips. The price tag? North of $2.5 billion.
The move is a direct response to U.S. export restrictions that block these cutting-edge processors from reaching China. By parking the infrastructure in Malaysia, ByteDance gets access to Nvidia's most powerful AI silicon without technically importing it to the mainland.
It's a massive bet on global AI expansion. The Blackwell architecture represents Nvidia's latest generation of AI accelerators, and 36,000 B200 chips is a staggering amount of compute power — enough to rival the largest AI clusters on the planet.
ByteDance clearly isn't letting export controls slow down its AI ambitions. It's just rerouting them.