ByteDance's chip design personnel in China discover unexpected reporting structure to Singapore department, according to unnamed sources.

ByteDance, the global tech giant and owner of TikTok, has made a significant move in the world of semiconductors by restructuring its chip design team and establishing a new unit based in Singapore.

According to reports, ByteDance incorporated a Singapore-registered entity called Picoheart in December 2023. Last year, Picoheart acquired a 9.5% stake in Chinese memory chip maker Innostar. The restructuring may help ByteDance navigate US-China tensions as it seeks to access advanced semiconductor technology.

The new grouping of ByteDance's chip design staff is based in Singapore, where the company also has large data centers and TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, is based. ByteDance began hiring chip-related staff in earnest in 2022, and recent job postings show six positions seeking chip-related talent, including one for its AI chip team.

The specific unit that the chip design staff are part of within ByteDance remains unknown, as do the exact number of employees involved. However, the employees discovered the change when they were moved into a new group on the company's internal messaging platform.

ByteDance's chip development portfolio includes video decoding and networking chips, and it has a dedicated team focusing on artificial intelligence applications. The chips released by ByteDance can only handle inference tasks, which are less computationally intensive than training workloads.

The company does not currently outsource chip manufacturing to TSMC, the world's biggest contract chip manufacturer, but last year it was reportedly working with US chip designer Broadcom on an advanced AI processor. This discovery of ByteDance's increased efforts to develop proprietary chips, known as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), comes as tech firms worldwide are increasing their focus on this area.

The restructuring of ByteDance's chip design team may be a response to US regulations affecting access to advanced semiconductor technology. Since late 2023, US regulations have prevented companies based in mainland China from using TSMC to produce advanced AI chips above certain performance thresholds.

ByteDance, however, did not respond to a request for comment regarding this matter. The search results do not provide information on when the ByteDance subsidiary Picoheart was registered in Singapore. The sources did not disclose the name of the unit that the chip design staff are part of.

ByteDance's move could potentially provide an alternative to US-China tensions in the field of advanced semiconductor technology. As the company continues to grow and expand, it will be interesting to see how its chip development efforts progress.