ByteDance Boosts 2026 AI Budget to $28B Amidst Chip Scarcity

ByteDance is doubling down on AI. The TikTok parent has reportedly increased its 2026 AI infrastructure budget to a massive $28 billion (RMB 200 billion), representing a 25% year-over-year hike.

Securing HBM4 and ASIC Dominance

A significant portion of this capital is earmarked for securing long-term contracts for high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) and developing custom ASIC clusters. With memory chip costs rising, ByteDance is moving to lock in supply before price hikes from Nvidia's Blackwell and Rubin generations fully take effect.

The Recommendation Engine Pivot

The company aims to transition its core recommendation algorithms from traditional deep learning to large-scale generative models, requiring orders of magnitude more compute. This infrastructure will also support their new generative video platform, aiming to rival Sora and Kling.