Nvidia's China Woes Deepen As TikTok Parent ByteDance Eyes AI Chips From Iluvatar CoreX, Baidu: Report

The article says ByteDance is diversifying its AI chip suppliers in China as U.S. export curbs continue to pressure Nvidia’s business. ByteDance is reportedly in talks with Iluvatar CoreX and Baidu’s Kunlunxin to secure AI chips, with Iluvatar potentially supplying at least 50,000 chips this year for inference workloads supporting Doubao chatbot growth. The shift underscores Beijing’s push for domestic semiconductor self-reliance and suggests Chinese chipmakers are gaining share versus Nvidia in the local AI accelerator market. The report also notes Nvidia had already been building AI infrastructure exposure in China-linked operations and is now marketing a new Vera AI data-center CPU to Chinese customers. For markets, the key takeaway is that Nvidia’s China opportunity may keep shrinking as local alternatives improve, while Chinese chipmakers and ecosystems such as Baidu, Huawei, and Cambricon may benefit.