ByteDance Secures $30 Billion Loan as AI Investments Grow

ByteDance is borrowing about $30 billion in the company’s biggest-ever loan, according to a person with knowledge of the financing.

The Chinese tech giant was originally seeking to borrow $20 billion. At $30 billion, it is the second-largest dollar-denominated loan in Asia this year, after a $40 billion bridge loan SoftBank borrowed earlier this year, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the upsized $30 billion loan.

ByteDance is ramping up its capital expenditures to expand its AI infrastructure. ByteDance, which develops its own models and operates China’s most popular AI chatbot app Doubao, is also rapidly expanding its cloud computing business to sell its models to enterprise customers. While its LLMs are trailing Chinese rivals like Alibaba and Moonshot, ByteDance’s Seedance is one of the global leaders in AI video generation models.

ByteDance’s biggest competitors are also raising money to accelerate their AI investments. Alibaba last month that it was looking to raise about $10 billion through a major share placement to fund its AI infrastructure spending.