Jakarta - TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is reportedly building a large-scale artificial intelligence computing power outside China using NVIDIA's most advanced AI chips. This step is being taken to strengthen the company's ambitions in the development of AI technology globally.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, ByteDance is working with Southeast Asian cloud company Aolani Cloud to operate around 500 Nvidia's Blackwell architecture-based computing systems in Malaysia.
The total infrastructure is estimated to include around 36,000 units of Nvidia B200 type AI chips, which are one of the most powerful AI processors today. The construction project of this computing center is said to be worth more than 2.5 billion US dollars or around Rp. 42 trillion.
With such computing capacity, ByteDance plans to use it for AI research and development outside China as well as meet the growing global demand for artificial intelligence services.
This move is also related to the regulation of the export of US technology that restricts the shipment of advanced AI chips to China. By building infrastructure outside the restricted area, companies can still use the technology for global development.
"By design, export rules allow for the development of cloud services outside of the country that are subject to restrictions. Supporting these clouds will bring tens of billions of dollars in investment and high-value jobs," an Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement.
He added that all of Nvidia's cloud partners must go through an internal review process before being allowed to receive the company's products.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Aolani Cloud said his company complies with all applicable export control regulations and aims to provide cloud computing services to various companies in Asia and the global market.
ByteDance itself has not given an official response to the report when asked for comment by Reuters.
Previously, Reuters also reported that the United States government was willing to allow ByteDance to purchase another AI chip from Nvidia, namely the H200 model. However, until now there has been no final agreement regarding the terms of using the technology.
In the modern technology industry, AI chips are the "steam engines" of the digital era. Giant artificial intelligence models require thousands to tens of thousands of processors to be trained and run. This means that whoever has access to the largest computing power will have a huge advantage in the global AI race.
In that context, ByteDance's computing project in Malaysia shows how the technological rivalry between countries and companies is now not only happening in AI labs - but also in giant data centers filled with processors the size of a postcard but worth billions of dollars.
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