New Delhi, March 13 -- TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance is looking to fuel its ambition of becoming a global artificial intelligence (AI) leader, by building up computing power with $2.5 billion worth of high-end Nvidia chips outside China.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, ByteDance is working with South Asian firm Aolani Cloud, drawing up plans to use around 500 Nvidia Blackwell computing systems comprising 36,000 B200 chips at a unit in Malaysia.

Citing people familiar with the matter, WSJ reported that Aolani is buying the servers from server solutions firm Aivres, which assembles servers using Nvidia hardware.

If all arrangements are competed according to plan, the hardware involved would cost more than $2.5 billi...