move up Sora 2, the hottest new AI video model is in town.
In early February, ByteDance announced Seedance 2.0, a major upgrade to its previously obscure flagship video model. Its powerful capabilities quickly sent shockwaves through China’s AI ecosystem, even among viewers who were once skeptical of AI-generated videos and viewed the technology primarily as a means to produce adulterated products.
Feng Ji, founder of GameScience, the game studio that developed China’s global hit video games Black Myth: Gokuwrote online that he was “deeply shocked” by the model’s capabilities and believed Seadance 2.0 would pose a significant challenge to China’s current copyright regulation and content moderation system. Pan Tianhong, who heads a professional video production studio in China with over 15 million followers on social media, posted a video saying that Seedance 2.0 is significantly better than any previous video production model. “I think about it like a coach,” Pan said.
However, access is still quite limited, so this model is currently out of reach for most people. As of this week, ByteDance is only allowing existing users of its consumer AI app to experience Seedance 2.0 in China. The most popular app is the chatbot app Doubao, but the company also disrupts lesser-known apps such as Jimeng, Xiaoyunque, and Spark. All these apps are only for the Chinese domestic market and people outside the country cannot test the models on their own. (This restriction has led some smart people in China to resell ByteDance accounts to eager early AI adopters overseas.)
However, there are signs that this model may soon become more accessible. This week, ByteDance updated its API platform and revealed proposed pricing for Seedance 2.0. The longest 15-second video that can be produced today costs just over $2 to create, Chinese publication IT Home estimates. ByteDance has not yet opened up API access to third-party developers, but that should happen soon.
Afra Wang, Substack Newsletter Author simultaneous A close observer of the AI landscape in the US and China, he says Seedance 2.0 is another interesting example of how the two countries have taken divergent paths. Even before the release of Seedance 2.0, some of the world’s most established video creation AI tools were developed by Chinese companies, including Kling AI. “China hasn’t developed proper AI coding tools, so all Chinese people rely on Claude codes and codexes. But when it comes to video AI, China is far ahead of the US,” Wang said.
But all the hype aside, Seadance faces two serious problems. Weeks into its release, ByteDance is facing a computing bottleneck where it takes several hours for its models to generate a single video. Meanwhile, major movie studios including Disney, Netflix, and Paramount have all sent ByteDance cease-and-desist letters claiming Seadance 2.0’s work infringes their copyrights. ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bandwidth issues
Even if you have access to the ByteDance AI app, generating videos with Seedance 2.0 is far from easy. There are too many people trying to do the same thing, and ByteDance still doesn’t provide enough computing resources for everyone.
This week when I tried to create a clip in one of ByteDance’s apps, I was number 90,985 in the queue and was told it would take about 4 hours to generate a 5 second video. After waiting for 2 hours, the app told me I had 6 hours left. At that point I decided to just go to bed.
