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ByteDance, owner of the popular short video app TikTok, plans to invest billions of dollars and recruit hundreds of employees in Singapore over the next three years, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The company’s plans to install a new data center in the city-state are not true, the source said, adding that the Beijing-based firm had stepped up the purchase of cloud computing servers in Singapore to back up US data for contingencies.
Separately, a company source said that TikTok had relocated some engineers to Singapore from China starting this year.
Bloomberg previously reported that ByteDance planned to make Singapore its beachhead for the rest of Asia as part of its global expansion.
Singapore has been stepping up its efforts in recent years to attract technology companies and investors. The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the center of global commerce and transportation hard, accelerating the need to reinvent itself.
The city-state is likely to become more attractive to companies seeking neutral ground amid rising tensions between the United States and China, according to analysts.
The investment comes as ByteDance is forced to sell TikTok’s assets in the US under pressure from the Trump administration, which has cited a potential risk to national security due to the large amount of private data the app is holding. compiling on American consumers.
According to a Bloomberg report on Thursday, the company is likely not meeting the September 20 deadline imposed by US President Donald Trump for the sale of assets, as new Chinese regulations have complicated negotiations for agreements with bidders Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp.
