AI TRENDS | ByteDance Develops In-House CPUs Amid Rising Chip Costs

ByteDance is reportedly developing its own CPUs to meet the growing demands of its artificial intelligence infrastructure. According to Jin10, the company faces challenges due to soaring chip prices and long-term supply shortages, which are hindering its expansion plans. This move highlights the industry's shift towards the 'inference' stage, which has significantly increased CPU demand, leading to shortages in recent months. ByteDance plans to deploy these self-developed CPUs in its servers and data centers to support internal operations and prepare for the large-scale launch of agent-like products, including the Coze platform. The company is exploring two CPU architecture routes: one based on Arm architecture and the other on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, to determine which design best suits its long-term data center needs. Currently, ByteDance sources CPUs from Intel and AMD, both of which have raised prices significantly in recent months, with quarterly increases ranging from 10% to 35%. This has prompted ByteDance to accelerate its internal alternatives.