ByteDance's Profit Margins Squeezed by Record AI Spending Even as Revenue Soars

ByteDance's first-half net profit fell to $20 billion as massive capital expenditures on artificial intelligence infrastructure weighed heavily on earnings, even though the Chinese tech giant's revenue surged 30% to $120 billion. The compression of profit margins at the world's most profitable social-media company crystallizes the scale of the AI arms race reshaping technology economics globally.