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TikTok U.S. seeks multiple gigawatts of compute, CNBC sources say
CNBC, citing two people familiar with the talks, said TikTok's U.S. operator is seeking multiple gigawatts of computing capacity; a spokesperson said Oracle remains its primary U.S. cloud provider.
- New headline Was: “TikTok U.S. hunts for multiple gigawatts of computing capacity, sources tell CNBC”
- Our desk filed its story
TikTok's U.S. operator is seeking multiple gigawatts of computing capacity over the coming years, CNBC reported Friday, citing two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly1.
The company, formally TikTok USDS Joint Venture, operates the social media app in the United States and has sounded out opportunities to obtain that capacity, those people told CNBC1. One of the sources said TikTok U.S. is looking for four gigawatts of compute power by the early 2030s1.
A company spokesperson told CNBC that TikTok "runs primarily on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the U.S. and Oracle will continue to be our primary cloud infrastructure provider"1. CNBC said Oracle Cloud Infrastructure typically runs in facilities Oracle leases, and that it had approached Oracle for comment1.
CNBC framed the outreach as part of a wider hunt for digital infrastructure as artificial intelligence workloads grow1. It said there are signs TikTok U.S. product plans could require extra compute, pointing to machine-learning job listings, including one that described a flagship B2B AI product involving large-model inference and creative automation1.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture was established in 2026 to comply with a U.S. executive order requiring ByteDance to divest the U.S. TikTok business, CNBC reported1. In January, TikTok U.S. said it would retrain, test and update its recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data and that the algorithm would be secured in Oracle's U.S. cloud environment, according to that account1.
Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX each hold 15% as managing investors, CNBC said, with the Dell Family Office also an investor and ByteDance retaining 19.9% of the new entity1. What contracts, if any, TikTok U.S. has signed for additional capacity, and Oracle's response, were not established in the report1.
