ByteDance doubles down on AI with updated version of Doubao

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has unveiled an updated version of China’s popular artificial intelligence (AI) app Doubao, as the company doubles down on AI development despite export restrictions on advanced chips in the US. 

According to a statement released on Wednesday, the Beijing-based company claimed the latest Doubao 1.5 Pro focuses on a “resource-efficient” training approach that does not sacrifice performance. 

“The model adopted an integrated train-inference design from the pre-training phase to balance between the best performance and most optimal inferencing cost,” ByteDance said on its official website, adding that it has created a server cluster with flexible support for low-end chips to reduce the AI infrastructure costs. 

In terms of training and inference efficiency, Doubao 1.5 Pro uses a sparse MoE architecture. In the pre-training stage, the performance of the MoE model activated with only smaller parameters can exceed that of ultra-large dense pre-trained models such as Llama3.1-405B, according to Doubao’s website. 

Through research on the sparsity Scaling Law, the team determined the sparsity ratio that balances performance and efficiency, and determined based on the MoE Scaling Law that a model activated with a small number of parameters can achieve the performance of a world-class model. 

However, ByteDance did not reveal the cost or chips used for training its latest model.

Don't miss: TikTok considers non-sale options following short-lived US ban

This comes after the tech giant is reportedly exploring options to keep TikTok alive in the United States (US) without selling the platform in the country. 

The Chinese company is reportedly looking into a deal to ensure the social media giant complies with US legislation, said Bill Ford, General Atlantic chief executive officer and ByteDance board member yesterday at the World Economic Forum.  

According to Bloomberg, Ford said the company is optimistic about finding a solution for the matter, noting that ByteDance has a number of alternatives to discuss with president Donald Trump that do not require the sale of TikTok, including a change of control. 

Don't miss: Instagram launches new video editing app Edits amidst TikTok ban

On the other hand, ByteDance's rival Meta also introduced a new video editing app called "Edits", days after ByteDance’s video editing app CapCut was taken down from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store amid the looming TikTok ban.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said in a statement that "Edits" is designed for individuals passionate about making videos on their phones.

“Edits is more than a video editing app; it’s a full suite of creative tools. There will be a dedicated tab for inspiration, another for keeping track of early ideas, a much higher-quality camera, all the editing tools you’d expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators, and — if you decide to share your videos on Instagram — powerful insights into how those videos perform,” Mosseri said.

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