ByteDance’s $14 Billion Gambit: Betting Big on NVIDIA While Building a Singapore Safety Net

According to The South China Morning Post, ByteDance plans to allocate roughly RMB 100 billion (about USD 14 billion) in 2026 for purchasing NVIDIA AI chips, a figure that follows RMB 85 billion budgeted in 2025. The commitment hinges on the assumption that NVIDIA will be permitted to sell its H200 GPUs to China, with approval from the U.S. government being potentially granted in full or downgraded form.

Total AI-related capital expenditure is rumoured to reach as high as RMB 160 billion, covering chip purchases, infrastructure expansion and talent acquisition, while ByteDance also maintains an internal chip design team of around 1,000 engineers as a “Plan B.” The company has reportedly taped out a self-developed processor whose performance is said to be comparable to NVIDIA’s H20, at a lower cost, suggesting some self-sufficiency for entry-level and inference workloads.

ByteDance is also pursuing high-bandwidth memory through internal R&D and external investments, and its Doubao chatbot reportedly handles more than 50 trillion tokens daily this month, up from 4 trillion in December last year. Additionally, the group shifted its internal chip division to a Singapore-based subsidiary called Picoheart last September, part of a broader move to relocate sensitive technologies and operations away from geopolitical flashpoints as it builds a Singapore safety net. 1 January 2026.