(Bloomberg) -- ByteDance Inc., the owner of TikTok, started a joint venture with a state-owned Chinese media group to develop business lines, including artificial intelligence and blockchain.

A unit of ByteDance has 49% of the new firm, which has registered capital of 10 million yuan ($1.4 million); Shanghai Dongfang Newspaper Co. owns the rest, according to a statement on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, an official business registration website.

Shanghai Dongfang Newspaper is the operator of The Paper.cn, a popular digital news outlet.

The joint venture began on Dec. 10 in Jinan city, the capital of eastern China’s Shandong province, according to the statement.

Representatives of ByteDance and Shanghai Dongfang Newspaper didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Zheping Huang in Hong Kong at zhuang245@bloomberg.net;Ina Zhou in Hong Kong at hzhou179@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, Jason Gale, Natnicha Chuwiruch

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