ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has begun training a large AI model with potentially up to 10 trillion parameters, aiming to narrow the gap with leading US developers, FT reports. According to three sources familiar with the matter, the model is currently in the pre-training stage, and its final size will be determined later. Such a scale could make it one of the largest AI models in the world and roughly triple the parameter count of China’s Kimi K3. Pre-training a model typically takes three to six months. After that, ByteDance plans to further fine-tune the system and release it, if the development process stays on track. For comparison, industry experts estimate Anthropic’s most powerful models could have around 8 trillion parameters. At the same time, the company does not officially disclose the parameter counts of its models. The number of parameters determines a model’s fundamental capacity to store and process information, but it does not, by itself, guarantee higher quality. AI capabilities are also influenced by the quality and volume of training data, training methods, model architecture, and approaches to further fine-tuning and optimization. Chinese developers have been ramping up competition with US AI labs in recent months. Several Chinese labs, according to sources, are also working on models at a scale of around 5 trillion parameters. ByteDance may currently be the company with the most ambitious plan to increase the parameter count. Despite the scale of the project, ByteDance discloses