US private equity groups have invested billions of dollars in data centres serving TikTok owner ByteDance, in a dealmaking frenzy now threatened by a US crackdown on Chinese companies’ access to the best chips.
Blackstone, Bain Capital, Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic have backed companies that run Malaysian data centres that count Beijing-based ByteDance as a tenant, according to four people with knowledge of the arrangements.
Some have done so without knowing whether ByteDance has been using, or is planning to use, the sites to exploit a legal loophole to access high-end Nvidia chips as it develops its artificial intelligence potential.