Exclusive-ByteDance plans $20 billion capex in 2025, mostly on AI, sources say

BEIJING (Reuters) -ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, has earmarked over 150 billion yuan ($20.64 billion) in capital expenditure for this year, much of which will be centred on artificial intelligence, two people briefed on the matter said.

The privately held technology giant plans to spend about half of the amount abroad on AI-related infrastructure, primarily data centres and networking equipment, they said.

The main beneficiaries of the spending will be chipmakers Huawei Technologies and Cambricon Technologies plus U.S. supplier Nvidia (NASDAQ:), the people said, declining to be identified as the information was confidential.

ByteDance said: “the anonymously sourced information about our spending is incorrect.” It didn’t elaborate.

Nvidia declined to comment. Huawei and Cambricon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

The spending will help ByteDance defend its AI lead at home. Having begun 2024 as a laggard, it now has over 15 standalone AI applications – more than rivals such as Baidu (NASDAQ:) and Tencent Holdings (OTC:) – including top chatbot Doubao.

The money will also reinforce AI offerings abroad at a time when ByteDance is grappling with the future of TikTok in the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order for a 75 day delay in the enforcement of a ban on the short-video app.

It was unclear how the 2025 plan compared with prior years as the private company does not disclose financial details.

On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported ByteDance planned $12 billion for AI infrastructure. In December, The Information reported a plan for up to $7 billion to access Nvidia chips outside China, to which the U.S. restricts high-tech exports.

ByteDance is already the biggest buyer of Nvidia’s H20 AI chips, which the U.S. chipmaker tailored for China in response to restrictions, Reuters reported in September. The TikTok owner is also Microsoft (NASDAQ:)’s biggest client in Asia for Nvidia chips accessible via cloud computing, sources have told Reuters.

Its AI apps in China include Doubao, meaning “bean bag”, with 75 million monthly active users, QuestMobile data showed.

It also operates text-to-video generator Jimeng and image generator Xinghui, as well as Kouzi, a platform for custom chatbot development, and Maoxiang, which offers role-play and emotional support.

Unlike domestic peers, ByteDance has created overseas counterparts for its biggest apps – internationally, Doubao is called Cici and Jimeng is Dreamina.

On Wednesday, ByteDance updated its flagship AI model – also called Doubao – aimed at challenging Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s reasoning model products.

Still, its spending is modest compared to U.S. tech giants. Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:) planned $50 billion for chips, data centres and other expenses last year, whereas Microsoft spent $55.7 billion in its fiscal year through June 30 with a significant portion on AI infrastructure. ($1=7.2671 renminbi)