The Chinese company ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, is building one of the world's most powerful artificial intelligence infrastructures outside its country of origin -and outside U.S. export controls-. As reported this Thursday by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the project, the company is working with the Southeast Asian firm Aolani Cloud to deploy in Malaysia around 500 computing systems equipped with Nvidia's new Blackwell chips, which would add up to about 36,000 B200 processors. The estimated cost of the project exceeds 2.5 billion dollars.
Nvidia, ByteDance and Aolani Cloud did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment, which could not independently verify the report. Aolani, a spokesperson told the WSJ, currently operates with approximately $100 million in hardware -a fraction of the planned investment-, which gives a measure of the magnitude of the announced deployment.
The operation occurs at a moment of maximum regulatory tension for TikTok in Europe and in Spain, where governments have intensified scrutiny over the algorithms of large digital platforms.
A pivotal maneuver in the midst of the war for AI
The move is legally and geopolitically significant. Washington has vetoed the export of Blackwell chips —Nvidia's most advanced family— to Chinese entities, precisely to limit China's ability to develop next-generation artificial intelligence systems. However, that veto applies to direct sales to China: deployment in data centers located in third countries, such as Malaysia, operates on different ground.
According to The Wall Street Journal, ByteDance is working with Southeast Asian company Aolani Cloud on a plan to deploy around 500 Nvidia Blackwell computing systems in Malaysia, which would amount to approximately 36,000 B200 chips intended for advanced artificial intelligence tasks.
ByteDance plans to spend in 2026 around 100 billion yuan -approximately 14 billion dollars- on Nvidia chips, according to the South China Morning Post. The Malaysian bet is just one piece of that global strategy.
Tiktok in the crosshairs of Europe
The deployment of this infrastructure comes at a time when TikTok is subject to unprecedented regulatory pressure in Europe. Since February 2024, the European Commission has opened formal proceedings to assess whether the platform complies with the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European regulation that obliges large platforms to transparency regarding their algorithms, protection of minors, and management of systemic risks. In October 2025, the Commission published preliminary findings against TikTok and Meta for failing to comply with their obligation to give researchers access to public data, a central requirement of the DSA to allow independent audits on the functioning of algorithms.
TikTok's investigation also covers the design of its algorithmic systems, age verification mechanisms, and the protection of minors -fronts on which the investigation remains open-. In December 2025, TikTok presented binding commitments that closed the part related to advertising transparency: the platform committed to publishing the full content of ads as they appear in users' feeds and to updating its repository within a maximum of 24 hours.
Spain: Sánchez raises the tone against the algorithms
The Government of Spain has taken in recent months one of Europe's most aggressive steps in terms of platform regulation. Pedro Sánchez announced at the World Governments Summit in Dubai a package of five legislative measures aimed at transforming the operation of large digital platforms in the country.
Among the most relevant measures is the criminalization of algorithm manipulation when used to artificially amplify illegal content. The Government also announced its intention to hold platform executives legally responsible for infringements committed on their services, and stated that it would study with the Public Prosecutor's Office the ways to investigate possible legal breaches by Grok, TikTok, and Instagram specifically.
Sánchez also announced the prohibition of access to social media for minors under 16, with an obligation for platforms to implement real and effective age verification systems. The Government also announced the creation of a tracking system called "HODIO", to quantify the amplification of hate speech by the algorithms of each platform.
The power of AI and algorithms in geopolitics
The pressure on large digital platforms is greater than ever: on the one hand, the technological race that pushes them to invest billions in computing infrastructure; on the other, a regulatory environment that for the first time has real sanctioning capacity.
TikTok is no longer analyzed solely as a social network. It is perceived by regulators and governments as a digital infrastructure with political, economic, and social impact, whose technological architecture -and especially its recommendation algorithms- is subject to scrutiny comparable to that received by other critical infrastructures.
The race for AI is no longer fought only among companies. It is also a battle between regulators and platforms over who controls the algorithms that organize information for millions of citizens.