The writer is the author of ‘Chip War’
At the start of this year, President Donald Trump declared that “enhancing America’s global AI dominance” was a central goal of his presidency. His dealmaking around TikTok’s future in the US market will be an early test of what “AI dominance” means in practice. That is because ByteDance — TikTok’s parent company — is China’s leading AI business.
ByteDance’s clever use of AI recommendation algorithms powers TikTok’s delivery of addictive short videos and effective ads. But its expertise extends beyond this. It has also produced impressive work in other AI subfields, including high-quality large language models and models for robotics.