China announces new export rules that could prevent sale of TikTok

Enlarge / TikTok's Los Angeles Office in Culver City. (credit: Xinhua via Getty Images)

China has announced new export restrictions for artificial intelligence technology that could complicate ByteDance's plans to sell off the US operations of its wildly popular TikTok app. The Trump administration has ordered ByteDance to spin off its US operations or shut them down by November.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Chinese government announced new restrictions on Friday that "cover such computing and data-processing technologies as text analysis, content recommendation, speech modeling and voice-recognition." A key part of TikTok's success has been its sophisticated algorithms for making personalized video recommendations. So a ban on transferring such technology could make it more difficult to transfer the app to a Western buyer or prevent a sale altogether.

ByteDance is reportedly close to announcing its decision. CNBC reports that the leading bidders are Microsoft (in partnership with Walmart) and Oracle. An announcement could come as early as Tuesday, with an expected sale price between $20 billion and $30 billion, according to CNBC.

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