ByteDance Ltd.’s Zhang Yiming has overtaken Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani as the richest Asian, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Yiming has become Asia’s richest person for the first time, as the artificial intelligence boom creates new fortunes that are overtaking some of the region’s long-established industrial wealth.Zhang, 43, is now worth more than $105 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His rise comes after he weathered a prolonged regulatory battle over TikTok that at one point threatened to shut down the social media platform in the US. He has now moved ahead of Gautam Adani.
Zhang Yiming’s wealth grows
Zhang’s fortune has grown eightfold from the $13 billion Bloomberg recorded in March 2019, when it began tracking his wealth.He had already become China’s richest person, helped by TikTok’s global reach and ByteDance’s expansion into artificial intelligence. The company’s AI push includes the Doubao chatbot and Seedance, its video-generation product.His latest jump in wealth underscores the scale of fortunes being created by the AI boom. These new gains are increasingly moving beyond the established wealth associated with industrial and consumer businesses, including Adani’s energy-to-retail empire, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Japan’s Uniqlo billionaire Tadashi Yanai.
ByteDance Ltd.’s Zhang Yiming is Asia’s richest person
Zhang’s rise also reflects how ByteDance has moved past the geopolitical tensions that surrounded TikTok and ultimately resulted in parts of its US operations being transferred to American investors earlier this year.“He plays his cards right,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at research firm Omdia. “He stayed on course and then continued to double down on AI investment,” Su told Bloomberg.Su said Zhang made a well-placed decision to keep developing ByteDance’s AI capabilities even as TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Chew faced questioning from US Congress in 2023. ByteDance also has access to a large amount of social-media data that could theoretically be used to train AI models, he said.According to Su, AI products and services are now ByteDance’s biggest opportunity after the company’s success with its video platform. At the same time, intense competition within China remains the company’s biggest risk.Zhang’s fortune increased by more than $12 billion this month after Bloomberg examined the latest valuations reported by investment firms BlackRock Inc., Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price Group Inc.Adani’s wealth, meanwhile, had climbed as high as $120 billion in June before falling in recent months. His conglomerate’s shares were affected by a rebalancing of stocks within the MSCI index, while a wider equity selloff triggered by rising oil prices and higher bond yields also weighed on the group’s shares.The Bloomberg Billionaires Index applies a 10% risk discount to ByteDance because the company is privately held.The AI boom has also produced new billionaires in China whose companies have yet to become profitable. The surge in AI-related investment has created a new category of extremely wealthy individuals from less obvious parts of the manufacturing sector as well.China has continued to promote AI development as it competes with the US for influence in global technology. Most recently, Beijing criticised calls from leading US technology executives for slower AI development and tighter restrictions on Chinese AI model makers.
