ByteDance is developing custom CPU chips to support its AI infrastructure and planned rollout of agent-based products

ByteDance is developing its own central processing units (CPUs) to support internal operations in its own servers and data centres, targeting deployment as it prepares a massive rollout of agent-based products including its Coze platform. The project remains at an early stage, and the company has approached external partners to assist with chip design and manufacturing capacity.

ByteDance is pursuing two chip architecture tracks — one based on SoftBank-owned Arm and another on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture — as it weighs which design best suits its long-term data centre requirements. Developing two designs simultaneously allows the company to test its options before committing to a large-scale manufacturing run.

The move reflects a broader industry shift toward inference (the step where AI models perform agentic tasks), which demands more from CPUs working alongside Nvidia graphics chips. This shift has created a CPU shortage in recent months, prompting global hyperscalers including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to also develop their own custom CPUs to reduce costs and tailor performance to their workloads.