ByteDance’s TikTok announced on Friday that it is reducing the number of workers it employs worldwide by hundreds, including a significant number of workers in Malaysia, in order to concentrate on using artificial intelligence (AI) more in content moderation.
TakeAway Points:
- TikTok announced on Friday that it is laying off hundreds of workers from its global workforce, including several employees in Malaysia.
- According to sources, more than 700 jobs were slashed in Malaysia.
- German industrial behemoth Bosch and American chip upstart Tenstorrent will work together to create a platform that would standardise the fundamental components of automotive chips.
Tiktok layoff workers
Two sources familiar with the matter earlier said that more than 700 jobs were slashed in Malaysia. TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, later clarified that less than 500 employees in the country were affected.
The employees, most of whom were involved in the firm’s content moderation operations, were informed of their dismissal by email late Wednesday, the sources said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to media.
TikTok confirmed the layoffs and said that several hundred employees were expected to be impacted globally as part of a wider plan to improve its moderation operations.
TikTok employs a mix of automated detection and human moderators to review content posted on the site.
ByteDance has over 110,000 employees in more than 200 cities globally, according to the company website.
More layoffs coming
The technology firm is also planning more retrenchments next month as it looks to consolidate some of its regional operations, one of the sources said.
“We’re making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for content moderation,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.
The company expects to invest $2 billion globally in trust and safety this year and will continue to improve efficiency, with 80% of guidelines-violating content now removed by automated technologies, the spokesperson said.
The layoffs were first reported by business portal The Malaysian Reserve on Thursday.
The job cuts occur as global technology firms face greater regulatory pressure in Malaysia, where the government has asked social media operators to apply for an operating licence by January as part of an effort to combat cyber offences.
Malaysia reported a sharp increase in harmful social media content earlier this year and urged firms, including TikTok, to step up monitoring on their platforms.
Bosch and Tenstorrent to collaborate on standardizing automotive chips
German industrial giant Bosch will collaborate with U.S. chip startup Tenstorrent to develop a platform for standardizing the building blocks of automotive chips, Tenstorrent executives said.
The plans include developing a standard method to use a building block of modern chips, called chiplets, to create systems that can power vehicles with significantly different needs, Tenstorrent chief customer officer David Bennett said in an interview.
By combining different quantities and types of chiplets to form complete processors, the two companies aim to reduce costs and increase the speed of bringing new silicon products to the automotive industry.
“(Bosch is) collaborating with us to essentially redefine how automakers look at silicon – purchasing silicon and building silicon,” Bennett said.
Hastened by the introduction of electric vehicles, autos have increasingly become products that resemble large computer systems that operate via a battery on four wheels.
The technical complexity of introducing electrification and automated driving systems has pushed vehicle makers to pursue new avenues to build or buy the necessary chips.
Chip giants such as Nvidia, Qualcomm, and the Intel-owned Mobileye produce a range of driver assistance chips and associated software.
The idea behind the collaboration with Bosch is that standardizing the technical requirements around the chiplet building blocks could lower prices, Bennett said.
Producing a large volume of a standard chiplet that could be added or removed as needed for each application would save cash. Automakers would also be afforded more customization options for each design versus buying off-the-shelf parts, Tenstorrent Automotive vice president Thaddeus Fortenberry said.
The collaboration does not yet include any specific products or sales to automakers.
Tenstorrent is helmed by Jim Keller, who headed Tesla’s efforts to design a chip for autonomous driving. Keller has designed chips for AMD and Apple, among others.
