ByteDance has overtaken Meta Platforms on the revenue front, according to Reuters’ July 17 AI newsletter. The TikTok parent generated more than US$43 billion in its latest quarter, surpassing Meta’s US$42.31 billion, even as both companies pour resources into developing general artificial intelligence. ByteDance has assembled a general intelligence team led by founder Yiming Zhang and is said to be working on frontier models that could rival Western systems.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has likewise committed to building artificial general intelligence, launching a Superintelligence Lab and open‑sourcing the company’s research. The competition between the two social‑media giants now extends beyond advertising into a race to develop the most capable AI models. The newsletter notes that ByteDance’s surge underscores how quickly China’s internet champions are growing in areas once dominated by their U.S. counterparts.
During a recent trip to Beijing for an energy and innovation summit, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed that his company can resume sales of its H20 AI chip in China after U.S. export restrictions curtailed shipments. Huang visited Chinese tech firms and said he was impressed by domestic AI models from DeepSeek, Alibaba and Tencent, calling them “world class.” His praise signals that China’s AI ecosystem is closing the gap with U.S. leaders.
The newsletter also highlighted the unprecedented flow of capital into AI startups. U.S. venture investment in the first half of 2025 totaled about US$162.8 billion, with AI deals accounting for roughly 64 percent of total deal value. Blockbuster raises included OpenAI’s US$40 billion round and Meta’s US$14.3 billion stake in Scale AI. As investors and tech giants compete to build general intelligence, ByteDance’s revenue milestone and Nvidia’s positive comments on Chinese models show how global the AI race has become.