ByteDance's GPU Purchase Budget Rises to 250 Billion Yuan

According to several sources familiar with the supply chain, the budget for computing power expenditures of China's leading internet companies in 2026 is rapidly expanding at a pace far exceeding the initial budget estimates. ByteDance's GPU machine procurement budget has soared from 160 billion yuan at the beginning of the year to 230 to 250 billion yuan, with the overall development expenditure reaching 430 to 450 billion yuan;

Tencent, shifting from a conservative stance of "adequate computing power reserves" to an aggressive stance, has a guaranteed GPU procurement budget of at least 100 billion yuan, with the top management potentially approving 200 to 300 billion yuan. An immense competition for computing power is underway, and the production capacity bottleneck of domestic chips is becoming the key variable in determining the outcome of this competition.

Budgets Rise Again and Again, Token Scale Doubles Monthly

According to informed sources, ByteDance's average daily Token processing scale in March 2026 has reached over a hundred trillion, with expectations for April to rise to 140 to 150 trillion, with a monthly growth rate exceeding 30%. Correspondingly, the MaaS business is expanding explosively: the enterprise-end pay-model customer base has increased from 4,000 to 5,000 in January 2025 to over 200,000 in March 2026; the revenue expectation for Volcano Engine's ToB side MaaS business has been revised upward from the original ten billion yuan to nearly 30 billion yuan. The triple increase in customer scale, payment willingness, and unit price continues to drive the upstream demand for computing power expansion. If the average daily Token consumption reaches 1,000 trillion by the end of 2026, the industry will require 4.5 to 5 million graphics cards—which far exceeds the current production capacity.

ByteDance's GPU budget has expanded from an initial AI chip special budget of 85 billion yuan to the current scale of 230 to 250 billion yuan for machine procurement, with the total CPU procurement budget increasing from 70 to 80 billion yuan to about 110 billion yuan, corresponding to a procurement volume of 120 to 130 thousand CPU machines per year from over 100 thousand; on the IDC side, ByteDance has completed a tender of about 1 point several GW, and according to informed sources, there is a high probability of launching another round of domestic IDC tendering on the same scale from July to September this year.

Tencent's transformation is similarly drastic and meaningful. This company, known for maintaining a conservative stance with the reason of "adequate computing power reserves to support business development," will make up for the computing power deficit of the past two years at once this year—an informed source said that the guaranteed Tencent GPU procurement stands at 100 billion yuan, with the top management potentially approving 200 to 300 billion yuan, with the overall underlying infrastructure investment scale expected to reach 200 to 300 billion yuan.

In contrast, Alibaba and Baidu are more restrained in their pace: Alibaba's GPU procurement is about 10 to 20 billion yuan, with a total procurement budget of about 50 to 60 billion yuan, and it adopts a flexible Opex leasing model to expand computing power; Baidu's annual intelligent computing procurement scale is only 20 to 30 billion yuan, with overall computing power investment significantly lower than that of ByteDance and Tencent.

Cambricon is Snapped Up, Ascend Faces Price Increase

Among ByteDance's domestic GPU machine procurement, it is estimated that 80 to 90 billion yuan will be invested in domestic GPU manufacturers. Cambricon has won orders of 25 to 30 billion yuan, mainly for models 590, 690, and 580, with almost all of the 690 production capacity taken by ByteDance, "if the production expansion goes smoothly, there will be additional procurement." Ascend has received an order of about 22 billion yuan, mainly for models 910C, 950PR, 950RDT—model 950PR's current unit price is about 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, due to the initial low pricing, buyers have generally accepted the expectation of subsequent price increases, and will adopt a "one card, one discussion" pricing model. It is estimated by informed sources that this year Ascend can deliver about several hundred thousand to seven or eight hundred thousand N+1 version chips, being the largest holder of current domestic GPU production capacity.

Tencent's share of Cambricon is