ByteDance Lands $29.6 Billion Loan to Fuel AI Advances

China’s ByteDance has reportedly secured a $29.6 billion loan from nearly 30 banks.

That’s according to a report Friday (Sept. 4) from Reuters, which says the TikTok owner’s plans for artificial intelligence have attracted strong interest from lenders.

The loan is the second-biggest in Asia this year, following the $40 billion SoftBank raised in March to strengthen its investment in OpenAI, the report added.

ByteDance had initially planned to raise $20 billion but increased its target after seeing strong response from the banks, Reuters said, citing sources familiar with the matter who said the funding will mostly support the company’s AI initiatives.

Reuters notes that the loan is unsecured, meaning ByteDance has not put up any collateral, calling it a sign of how confident banks are in its creditworthiness.

“It is very rare to see such a mega loan unsecured,” one of the sources told Reuters. “The banks practically are counting purely on ByteDance’s name.”

The money will be used to finance projects outside China, the source said, adding ByteDance has pledged to purchase capacity at many of Southeast Asia data centers.

“ByteDance is competing with local hyperscalers on AI data centers and with global hyperscalers on multimodal AI model,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at research firm Omdia.

In other AI news, recent PYMNTS Intelligence research shows that consumers want three different varieties of AI help when shopping.

Asked to pick one AI surface for product research, 42% chose AI inside search, 34.6% opted for standalone platforms and 23.4% picked merchant assistants, according to the report “The AI Power User Gets Pickier.”

“Search leads overall, but its advantage fades as AI use intensifies,” the report said.

The findings also found that AI’s strongest adherents, so-called “power users,” favored standalone platforms by more than 2 to 1 over search, 57.1% to 28.2%. Millennials also put standalone AI first at 42%, while baby boomers and seniors favored search at 47.6%. Android owners preferred search, while iPhone owners split almost evenly.

Each surface “wins with a different promise,” the report added, with search eliminating friction, as 41.7% cited free access with no separate account and 38.5% pointed to trust in the search engine. Standalone platforms do the best when it comes to neutral intelligence, trusted answers and follow-up conversation.

“Merchant assistants win near the transaction with exact inventory, current prices and checkout connections. The market can support all three,” the report added. “Search is the easy starting point. Standalone AI is a research destination for people who want more control. Merchant AI connects an answer to an available product.”

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