Beijing ByteDance Technology Co. Ltd., owner of Chinese video app TikTok, is forming a team to develop its own search engine.
"We are building a general search engine for a more ideal user experience," according to a job listing on ByteDance's WeChat account.
The company said it has already recruited talents from search giants such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC, Microsoft Corp.'s Bing and Baidu Inc.
ByteDance's search engine will likely not be a stand-alone offering but instead will be embedded within apps such as its Jinri Toutiao news service, according to Bloomberg News.
The company, which was valued at nearly US$75 billion in 2018, is also working to enter the smartphone business and the music streaming space.
