ByteDance Secures $29.6 Billion Loan To Fuel AI Expansion Plans

TikTok owner ByteDance has signed a massive $29.6 billion loan deal with more than two dozen banks as the company ramps up its artificial intelligence push. The deal ranks as the second-largest loan in Asia this year, trailing only SoftBank’s $40 billion loan from earlier in the year.

Major Banks Back The Deal

More than 28 financial institutions took part in the three-year loan, which can be extended up to five years. Lenders include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and HSBC. Notably, ByteDance is borrowing at just 0.68 percentage points above the standard benchmark rate, far lower than SoftBank’s 2.5-point premium, a sign that lenders see the company as a low-risk borrower.

Building On Previous Borrowing

This isn’t ByteDance’s first large loan. The company borrowed $10.8 billion back in 2024. Reports earlier this year suggested ByteDance could spend up to $70 billion on AI data centers and infrastructure, and the company had initially been seeking a smaller $20 billion loan before landing this bigger deal. ByteDance was valued at around $550 billion earlier this year.

Comes Amid AI Slowdown Debate

The loan news lands just days after top AI leaders, including Elon Musk, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, called for the industry to slow its pace over safety concerns. Those comments followed the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who warned of serious risks tied to AI systems. Separately, a recent industry report projects that major US tech companies will spend more than $800 billion this year on AI infrastructure, with that figure expected to top $1 trillion in 2027.