H200 imports have not been cleared yet, ByteDance's over $200 billion AI infrastructure budget significantly tilts towards domestic chips

According to DeepInsight Beating monitoring, ByteDance plans to increase its artificial intelligence capital expenditure to over 200 billion yuan this year, a more than 25% increase from the preliminary budget of 160 billion yuan discussed at the end of last year.

Reported by the South China Morning Post, this budget is significantly tilted towards domestic AI chips.

The direct reason for the budget increase is the rise in memory chip costs and the expansion of its AI business. In terms of computing power procurement structure, a key background is that although the U.S. government has approved NVIDIA to export the H200 chip to China, domestic companies have not yet been cleared for import by Chinese regulatory authorities. To mitigate geopolitical risks and respond to policy calls, increasing the purchase of domestic chips has become a practical choice.

At the same time, ByteDance's overseas AI layout is also surging. This week, the Thai government approved a data infrastructure investment of up to $25 billion by ByteDance, far exceeding its initial $8.8 billion five-year plan; last month, the company also announced an additional €1 billion investment in data centers in Finland.

For scale reference, last year, the total AI capital expenditure of all Chinese Internet giants was about 400 billion yuan, while this year, just Google or Microsoft's individual budget is around $190 billion.