Tech Brief (Jan. 29): TikTok Outage Puts New U.S. Operations to the Test

Published: Jan. 29, 2026 11:57 a.m. GMT+8

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TikTok outage puts new U.S. operations to the test

TikTok is grappling with widespread service disruptions in the U.S. after a severe winter storm knocked out power at an Oracle Corp. data center, testing the resilience of its operations under a new American-owned structure. The technical issues began over the weekend when a power outage triggered “a cascading systems failure,” TikTok USDS Joint Venture LCC said in a statement, adding that users may experience issues like bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content.

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TikTok faced widespread U.S. outages after a winter storm knocked out power at an Oracle data center, highlighting operational resilience issues.
China’s telecom sector revenue in 2025 grew only 0.7%, with traditional services declining and digital service growth slowing to 4.7%.
Iluvatar CoreX aims to surpass Nvidia in AI chip architecture by 2026-2027, while Texas expanded its ban on Chinese tech to 50 firms.

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Who’s Who

TikTok: TikTok is facing widespread U.S. service disruptions due to a power outage at an Oracle Corp. data center caused by a severe winter storm. This incident is testing the resilience of its operations under a new American-owned structure. Users may experience bugs, slow loading, or timed-out requests.

Oracle Corp.: Oracle Corp. is mentioned in connection with a TikTok outage in the U.S. A severe winter storm caused a power outage at an Oracle Corp. data center, leading to a "cascading systems failure" and widespread service disruptions for TikTok users.

Moonshot AI: Moonshot AI (月之暗面), a Chinese AI startup, has launched K2.5, an upgraded version of its flagship multimodal model Kimi. K2.5 excels in tasks from coding to essay writing, processing text, images, and videos from a single prompt. It also features agentic workflows, enabling autonomous decision-making and task coordination.

Iluvatar CoreX: Iluvatar CoreX (芯砺智能) is a Hong Kong-listed GPU maker based in Shanghai. It has announced an ambitious three-year development plan for its AI chip architecture, aiming to surpass Nvidia's Blackwell architecture by 2026 and its Rubin architecture by 2027. The company's goal is to rival Nvidia, the industry leader, in the near future.

Nvidia Corp.: Nvidia Corp. is mentioned as the industry leader in GPU manufacturing for AI chips. Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor Co. Ltd., aims to rival and eventually surpass Nvidia's Blackwell and Rubin architectures with their own AI chip development roadmap by 2027.

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