Vnet Group Inc has secured a record order to supply TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd with about 500 megawatts of capacity from its data centres in China, according to people familiar with the situation.
Vnet won the order recently from ByteDance, which wants more computing and storage capacity to grow its flagship chatbot Doubao and other artificial intelligence technology, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. They didn’t provide financial terms or other details.
The order would account for a major portion of Vnet’s business, given that it had a total of 783MW of wholesale capacity in service as of end-September, with 582MW utilised by customers. A 500MW data project would typically cost several billion dollars, Cushman & Wakefield noted in a report last year.
Vnet and ByteDance representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Chinese AI firms such as ByteDance, Zhipu and MiniMax Group Inc are competing for tech dominance and users, releasing updated AI models this year to get ahead in the race. Beijing-based Vnet’s customers include big names such as Tencent Holdings Ltd, JD.com Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Vnet’s net revenue in the July-September quarter rose about 22% from a year earlier to 2.58bil yuan (RM1.4bil), with 1.95bil yuan (RM1.1bil) coming from internet data centres. – Bloomberg
