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According to Bloomberg, ByteDance is close to reaching an agreement with MediaTek to procure semiconductors for data centers. Sources familiar with the matter say that the Chinese social media company is in deep discussions with MediaTek regarding the supply of custom chips, which will be used to operate ByteDance's data centers.Sources indicate that MediaTek will provide an unspecified number of application-specific integrated circuits, which are chips customized for the client's platform. If the deal is finalized, ByteDance could become MediaTek's second-largest customer for such chips after Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and it would help the Taiwanese chipmaker compete with Qualcomm. Due to the private nature of the arrangements, the sources requested anonymity.

According to reports from Major Factory Daily, ByteDance released a company-wide letter on October 13, initiating a new round of stock option repurchases, with a pre-tax repurchase price of $241.35 per share, the same as the price circulated in early September. Participants in this repurchase include former employees, with those who recently left due to business adjustments receiving the same repurchase price per share as current employees, with no discount.According to the company-wide letter, the repurchase amount is calculated based on each granted option. For total package and other types of options, such as those granted upon joining and adjustments to total packages, 50% of the shares that have vested in each batch can be applied for repurchase after vesting, increasing by 10% for each additional year thereafter. For performance-based options granted before January 1, 2026, 100% of the shares that have vested in each batch can be applied for repurchase after vesting; for grants on or after January 1, 2026, 55% can be applied for repurchase after vesting, increasing by 15% for each additional year thereafter. For bonus-based options, 50% of the shares that have vested can be applied for repurchase one year after the first vesting date, and 100% can be applied for repurchase after two years.The company-wide letter also indicated that total package options granted upon joining require approximately 5 years to achieve 100% vesting, while options granted for outstanding performance require about 3 to 4 years to achieve 100% vesting.

ByteDance Seed recently sent an internal email announcing the establishment of the Seed Model-Alignment & Preparedness department, which will be led by Yan Lin and report to Seed head Wu Yonghui. Members of the original Responsible AI team and some members of the Chat team will transition to the new department.The department aims to strengthen investments in safety and alignment. The core of alignment is to ensure that model behavior is consistent with human intentions and safety constraints, in order to enhance the safety capabilities of Agent Models and prevent risks from cutting-edge capabilities such as chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Jump Crypto's Firedancer wallet has staked another 454,000 SOL, worth 49.81 million USD.

The semiconductor research organization SemiAnalysis released a survey on Chinese data centers, tracking over 1,000 facilities from more than 60 operators. The report estimates that by the end of 2026, China's data center capacity will exceed 24GW, second only to the United States' 56GW. ByteDance accounts for nearly one-fifth of this, making it the largest data center tenant in the country.ByteDance has leased over 4GW of data center capacity, with suppliers including Qinhuai Data, China United Network Communications, and Century Internet. The report states that by early 2026, ByteDance will still contribute about 90% of Qinhuai Data's revenue. ByteDance has also begun to accelerate its self-built data centers, constructing large facilities in Shanxi, Anhui, and Inner Mongolia to reduce reliance on external suppliers.The report also mentions that while Chinese data centers have long been considered to have a high vacancy rate, AI server rooms are still in short supply. This is due to many old server rooms lacking sufficient power supply and cooling capabilities, making it difficult to directly deploy high-power AI servers, while newly built large AI data centers are quickly being rented out. For example, a 100MW data center, excluding IT equipment such as servers, has a construction cost of about $300 million in China and about $1.5 billion in the United States, with Chinese facilities of the same scale typically delivered in about 12 months. Compared to the power supply and approval issues faced by the United States, the more prominent bottleneck for expanding AI data centers in China is the supply of advanced chips.

According to a report by Phoenix Technology citing Bloomberg, former ByteDance intern Tian Keyu has secured nearly $30 million in funding from firms such as Five Sources Capital and IDG Capital, with a post-investment valuation of $200 million. The funds will be used for a startup that is still in stealth mode, competing in the field of world models against AI researchers like Fei-Fei Li.In 2024, during his internship at ByteDance, Tian Keyu was accused of disrupting model training and causing resource waste by writing and altering code due to dissatisfaction with team resource allocation. ByteDance filed a lawsuit seeking 8 million yuan in damages and stated that the intern had been dismissed, while also claiming that online reports of "involving over 8,000 cards and losses exceeding tens of millions of dollars" were grossly exaggerated. The court ruled that Tian Keyu must pay 500,000 yuan for breach of contract and confiscated his entire salary. Tian Keyu stated that he had closed another intern's program to free up computing power, admitted to inappropriate behavior, but described it as "acting on behalf of justice," and expressed that he would take a wiser approach if given another chance.Tian Keyu completed his master's degree at Peking University last summer and is the first author of one of the best papers at NeurIPS 2024. His lab currently has no name or products, with a team of about 10 people, including other former ByteDance employees. He claims to have created a dictionary containing about 200,000 symbols that are unrecognizable to humans for processing videos and plans to input 100 million hours of video into the model, stating that this technology could reduce the cost of generating one second of video by at least an order of magnitude, with plans to showcase it through offline events before the full model release in 2027. As of the time of publication, a ByteDance spokesperson had not responded to inquiries about the dismissal, while representatives from Five Sources Capital and IDG Capital confirmed the investment but did not comment further.

On September 30, according to Yicai, Doubao, a subsidiary of ByteDance, announced that users can complete travel needs such as flight bookings, train ticket purchases, ride-hailing, and route navigation through Doubao. Users only need to describe their needs in natural language, such as "Help me book a flight from Beijing to Shanghai tomorrow" or "Call a car to Capital Airport," and Doubao can recognize the intent and invoke the corresponding services without switching between multiple applications.In terms of cooperation, Doubao collaborates with Flight Butler and High-speed Rail Butler to support flight inquiries, price comparisons, online bookings, and order management; it partners with ride-hailing platforms like Caocao Travel, and collaborates with navigation platforms like Baidu Maps. This news was reported by journalist Lü Qian, edited by Yu Jian.

Spot gold rose slightly on Tuesday but remained trading below $4,200 per ounce. This followed a sell-off in the precious metals market triggered by U.S. Treasury yields rising to multi-decade highs and an increase in oil prices. IG analysts stated that gold only rebounded slightly due to market expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain high interest rates for a longer period. Traders expect a 72.5% probability of a rate hike by the Federal Reserve in October. The market is focused on U.S. economic data, including the Consumer Confidence Index and job vacancy data.

Reuters quoted The Information's report stating that the Chinese government has signaled that it may allow some domestic companies, such as ByteDance and Alibaba, to purchase chips from Nvidia designed for high-end professional computers. The Information cited two informed sources saying that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently requested companies, including ByteDance and Alibaba, to report their plans to purchase Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 chips and informed some companies that the government intends to approve these purchases.Some industry executives expect that the RTX PRO 5500 could bypass U.S. export restrictions. Reuters stated that it could not immediately verify the above report. A spokesperson for Nvidia responded that U.S. companies are still subject to outdated U.S. export controls as well as China's import restrictions on the U.S., with the relevant export controls covering gaming products released nearly five years ago. Alibaba and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Reuters was also unable to reach the Chinese government for comment.

According to reports from the investment community, ByteDance has hired former Coatue China head Kai Jiang to join its financial investment team based in Hong Kong, reporting to ByteDance CFO Gao Zhun. Kai Jiang previously led investments in Asian technology and consumer sectors at Coatue, participating in projects such as Zhiye Bang, Kuaikan Manhua, and CertiK.The report states that ByteDance's financial investment business has not been interrupted but will shift towards a more prudent approach, focusing on returns and core sectors. Recently, ByteDance has invested in companies such as Shengshu Technology, Yingmou Technology, and Ziwenti Robot, covering areas like embodied intelligence, AI infrastructure, and 3D generation. This move is seen as a watershed moment for ByteDance to reactivate its external investments in the AI era.

Federal Reserve Chairman Waller stated that he would not disclose details of the Federal Open Market Committee's future interest rate decisions and emphasized that he is not responsible for providing forward guidance.Waller mentioned that today's rate hike decision was made after careful consideration, not driven by the market, but based on an assessment of the current situation, employment trends, and economic strength.

According to the FCA official website, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom has released new guidance on the regulation of crypto assets to help businesses understand the scope and authorization requirements of the future crypto asset regime in the UK. This regime will officially take effect on October 25, 2027, and the application channel for authorization will open on September 30, 2026.The guidance covers activities such as issuing qualified stablecoins, operating crypto asset trading platforms, trading and matching, crypto asset custody, and staking arrangements. FCA Executive Director David Geale stated that this guidance aims to provide clarity for businesses so they can confidently prepare for regulation. The government has also made targeted amendments to relevant laws, introducing certain exemption clauses and further clarifying provisions for specific technology service providers. The FCA will launch a special consultation in October regarding the aforementioned legal changes, involving topics such as qualified stablecoins, proprietary trading and market making, decentralized protocols, and financial promotions.

Zhipu stated in a conference call with analysts and investors that it has signed revenue-sharing agreements with several leading domestic and international cloud service providers, and the related revenue will start to be recognized from October.The cooperation model involves providing services for the GLM series of open-source models in the form of hosted APIs on overseas cloud platforms. Currently, the company's total business ARR has reached 1.8 billion USD, and the year-end ARR guidance has been raised from 2.4 billion USD to 3 billion USD.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has become the richest person in Asia for the first time with a net worth of over $105 billion, surpassing Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.At 43 years old, Zhang Yiming's wealth has increased eightfold from $13 billion when Bloomberg began tracking in March 2019. He previously faced a regulatory battle that nearly led to TikTok being banned in the United States.

According to foreign media reports, due to increased investment in the field of artificial intelligence, ByteDance's net profit in the first half of 2026 decreased year-on-year, with the net profit margin dropping to approximately 16.7%. During the same period, revenue grew by 30% year-on-year, and the proportion of overseas revenue reached a new high. ByteDance did not comment on the above data.Earlier reports indicated that ByteDance's net profit margin for 2023 was 26%, and for 2024 it is expected to be 21%. Douyin still contributes the majority of revenue, but overseas revenue from TikTok has accounted for over 30% of total revenue. In 2025, overseas revenue is expected to grow by nearly 50%, while domestic revenue is about 20%, with the overseas proportion rising from 25% in 2024 to over 30%.The report stated that ByteDance has independently developed large language models and video models, operates Doubao, and expands its AI cloud business, with the Seedance video generation model being in the top tier of the global AI video market. The company recently obtained approximately $30 billion in loans from banks. Alibaba is seeking to raise about $10 billion through a stock placement, while Zhipu AI is launching a total of $5 billion in equity and convertible bond issuance.

ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo stated today at the Feishu Future Unlimited and Doubao Work Kickoff Conference: Over the past 50 years, there have been four peaks of development in the IT field: PC, Web, Mobile, and AI, with the AI peak far surpassing the heights of the previous three.Liang Rubo believes that peaks are rare, and the intervals between past industry development peaks have been 15-20 years, making such industry-level opportunities extremely valuable.

TikTok's parent company ByteDance has signed a loan agreement totaling $29.6 billion with 28 banks, including HSBC and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The loan has a term of three years, extendable up to five years, with an interest rate 0.68 percentage points above the benchmark rate. This is the second-largest loan in Asia this year, following the $40 billion loan arranged by SoftBank in March.According to Bloomberg, ByteDance plans to use this loan for general corporate purposes to advance its artificial intelligence development goals. The company previously borrowed $10.8 billion from about 20 lenders in 2024, and the initial size sought for this loan was $20 billion. ByteDance was valued at approximately $550 billion in February this year, and Bloomberg reported in May that the company is considering investing up to $70 billion in data centers and other AI infrastructure by 2026.As the loan news was released, Elon Musk, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for a slowdown in the AI race, expressing concerns about safety issues. Additionally, a report from Bitcoin Suisse predicts that the largest hyperscale computing companies in the U.S. will spend over $800 billion this year, exceeding $1 trillion by 2027.

According to SolanaFloor, Jump Crypto's Firedancer team will stop supporting the Solana transitional validator client Frankendancer after Alpenglow is activated on the Solana mainnet, with the upgrade expected to go live in October with v4.3.The team stated that the decision was made due to the maintenance and security burden, and they will subsequently focus resources on the complete Firedancer client.

NASDAQ-listed company Hyperion DeFi (NASDAQ: HYPD) announced on September 8, 2026, an upward revision of its full-year guidance for 2026 and initiated a common stock repurchase plan of up to $20 million. The company claims to be the first publicly listed DeFi company in the U.S. built on Hyperliquid. The full-year adjusted gross profit guidance has been raised from the previous $5 million to $7 million to $7 million to $8 million.The company expects adjusted net operating cash flow to turn positive in the third quarter of 2026, earlier than the previous expectation of "turning positive by the end of 2026"; and it anticipates that core operating income will turn positive in the third quarter, with adjusted gross profit from the core DeFi business expected to exceed operating expenses after excluding equity incentives for the first time. The adjusted gross profit guidance for the third quarter is $2 million to $2.5 million, with operating expenses after excluding equity incentives at $2 million to $2.25 million, and core operating income at $0 to $500,000.The board has authorized the repurchase of up to $20 million of common stock in circulation within a maximum of 12 months, which can be conducted through open market purchases, private negotiations, block trades, and other methods, with no specific quantity guaranteed. The plan may be extended, suspended, or terminated at any time. CEO Hyunsu Jung stated that the DeFi business has accelerated recently, and the core business in the third quarter is expected to achieve breakeven in terms of profit and cash flow, noting that HYPD common stock is currently trading at a discount of about 20% to 30% relative to net assets.