According to a Bloomberg report, the holding company of popular social media app TikTok, ByteDance, has introduced a joint venture with state-owned Chinese media group and ThePaper.cn operator Shanghai Dongfang Newspaper to establish business models that include blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI).
The joint venture was launched in the capital of eastern China's Shandong province, Jinan, on December 10 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan ($1.43 million). ByteDance owns 49% of the venture while the rest is owned by the Chinese media group.
The joint venture will focus on partnership in the digital rights of short videos. ByteDance's partner on the venture is Chinese media company Shanghai Dongfang Newspaper. The company is the operator of ThePaper.cn, one of China's leading digital media outlets. The company owns 51% of the new firm and is mainly owned and controlled by the Shanghai United Media Group, which is in turn supported by the Shanghai local government.
TikTok has 500 million monthly active users and is currently the second most downloaded app in the Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) App Store in the United States. The app's short video feed is completely managed by a purpose-built AI to predict and deliver content that the user will likely prefer.
While it's not yet clear how ByteDance and TikTok could benefit from blockchain technology, one possible user case could be for digital media data verification. For instance, U.S. law enforcement Axon Enterprise aims to test blockchain for its body cameras to fight Deepfake AI-generated videos.
Although few details are available regarding this new partnership, this move by Bytedance indicates that China is serious when it comes to using blockchain technology to benefit its citizens and companies. China's open support of blockchain has led to several new initiatives in the past few weeks. Provincial governments in China are experimenting with blockchain for public services.
On the other hand, the partnership with the state media group will add to the controversy surrounding Bytedance. In November, the U.S. government opened a national security review of TikTok following the 2017 acquisition of a U.S. company Musical.ly. Two U.S. senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton initiated the review over concerns that the platform was collecting user data and whether China censors content seen by U.S. users.