ByteDance in advanced talks to buy MediaTek data-center ASICs

ByteDance is in advanced talks with MediaTek over the supply of bespoke chips to run its data centers, a deal that would make the TikTok parent MediaTek's second major customer for such ASICs after Alphabet's Google, Bloomberg reported.

Neither ByteDance nor MediaTek has commented publicly on the talks. Reuters said it 'could not immediately verify the report.'

The move extends ByteDance's push to diversify away from restricted Nvidia GPUs as US export controls limit access to advanced parts. The company has guided 2026 AI infrastructure capital expenditure to a range of 160 to 200 billion yuan, with roughly half potentially going toward processors. In May 2026, Qualcomm was reported to have signed a deal with ByteDance for millions of ASICs aimed at AI workloads.

For MediaTek, landing ByteDance would help it compete with Qualcomm in bespoke AI silicon. The reporting does not disclose chip volumes, pricing, or a target shipment date. It lands in a dense run of chip-supply stories on our AI infrastructure tracker, one day after ASML's China equipment sales surge.