TikTok's parent company ByteDance has reportedly quietly invested in Xinyuan Semiconductors, a Chinese memory chip maker.
a report of pandalya Beijing-based tech media site, the move reportedly positions ByteDance as the chipmaker's third-largest shareholder, with an indirect 9.5% stake.
A ByteDance spokesperson confirmed this previously undisclosed investment to Pandaily, stating that its goal is to accelerate the development of virtual reality headsets. This move aligns with ByteDance's growing interest in the virtual reality sector as it plans to take on Meta's Quest and Apple's Vision Pro.
Moving towards virtual reality
Headquartered in Shanghai and established in 2019, Xinyuan Semiconductors specializes in resistive random access memory (ReRAM) technology and related chip products. The company's portfolio covers three main application areas: high-performance industrial control and automotive SoC and ASIC chips, Compute-in-Memory (CIM) chips and IP, and System-in-Memory (SoM) chips.
This investment in Xinyuan Semiconductors is not ByteDance's first foray into the semiconductor industry. In 2021, the tech giant also invested in Moore Thread, a Chinese GPU manufacturer.
The company's strategic investments indicate a clear intention to compete in the virtual reality space. TikTok is now available as a native app for Vision Pro.
But while this latest investment could set the stage for a showdown with Apple and its Vision Pro headphones, ByteDance has another, much bigger battle on its hands right now.
The US House of Representatives recently passed a major bill that could lead to TikTok being banned in the US if the Chinese parent company does not sell its majority stake in the social media app within the next six months.
