Chinese Tech Giants Invest Heavily in Proprietary Chip Design

Chinese internet giants are increasingly moving beyond software and into semiconductor design, betting that proprietary chips will give them greater control over computing infrastructure as artificial intelligence workloads surge and geopolitical tensions hamper access to advanced foreign technology.

Short video giant Kuaishou is the latest to ride the wave, after its chip spin-off TranStreams raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A+ financing round this week led by QF Capital, according to ITJuzi.com, a local start-up database platform.

Other participants in the round included a state-backed investment vehicle under the Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Fund, Baidu’s venture arm, as well as XGD, a Shenzhen-based digital payment tech provider.

Neither Kuaishou nor TranStreams responded to a request for comment on Thursday.

The funding underscores growing investor confidence in a sector that has attracted the likes of ByteDance, Baidu and Alibaba Group Holding, as they seek to lower long-term computing costs and reduce reliance on third-party suppliers with proprietary semiconductors.

Beijing-based TranStreams traces its roots to the heterogeneous computing and chip unit Kuaishou established in 2018. It was spun off in March 2024 with the goal of doubling down on its SL200 system-on-chip for video processing and AI inferencing.