Qualcomm is in talks to provide custom chip-design services to ByteDance, per Reuters reporting.

Qualcomm is in preliminary discussions with ByteDance to design custom chips tailored to the Chinese tech company's specific requirements, according to Reuters reporting.

The talks represent a potential deepening of chip-design collaboration between a major U.S. semiconductor intellectual-property provider and one of China's largest AI-focused technology companies. Such partnerships enable companies to optimize hardware for their particular workloads and reduce dependency on off-the-shelf solutions.

This development underscores the ongoing competition in the AI chip space, where companies seek to build or commission semiconductor designs optimized for their infrastructure needs. For ByteDance, custom chip design could support its AI and recommendation systems, while for Qualcomm, it represents a potential revenue stream from design-services work.