TikTok-owner ByteDance has emerged as an early frontrunner in the race to capitalise on generative artificial intelligence in China, poaching top talent from local rivals and becoming Nvidia’s biggest customer in the country.  

The Beijing-based company has lured top AI engineers and researchers away from Alibaba and start-ups such as 01.ai and Zhipu in recent months, according to multiple people with knowledge of the hiring spree. It has also created and expanded teams to work on its large language models and AI products. 

ByteDance is ploughing billions of dollars into AI infrastructure. In the past two years, it has purchased enough cutting-edge Nvidia graphics processing units to build advanced AI models, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.