Home TechnologyTencent Reportedly Signs $7 Billion Oracle Deal for 100,000 AI Chips

Tencent Reportedly Signs $7 Billion Oracle Deal for 100,000 AI ChipsTechnology

2026-10-05

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The Financial Times reports the five-year cloud lease would give the Chinese tech giant access to advanced chips unavailable domestically.

Tencent Reportedly Signs $7 Billion Oracle Deal for 100,000 AI Chips

Chinese technology giant Tencent has reportedly signed its largest overseas cloud lease agreement with US provider Oracle, securing access to around 100,000 advanced artificial-intelligence chips housed in Southeast Asian data centers, the Financial Times reported.

The five-year agreement is worth roughly $7 billion, with an upfront payment of about 30 percent, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter. The arrangement would give Tencent access to high-performance computing hardware that is difficult to obtain directly in China amid US export restrictions on advanced chips.

Under current US export regulations, offshore cloud leasing arrangements remain permitted, allowing Chinese firms to tap advanced processors — including Nvidia chips barred from direct export to mainland China — through data centers abroad. The report said neither Tencent nor Oracle had publicly confirmed the deal, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the figures, which should be treated as reported terms rather than confirmed facts.

The reported lease underscores how Chinese technology majors continue to anchor their AI ambitions to overseas computing infrastructure even as they invest heavily in domestic alternatives. Tencent reported a 176 percent year-on-year jump in second-quarter capital expenditure to 53 billion yuan (about $7.5 billion), driven largely by advance payments for AI computing resources and data center infrastructure, according to industry coverage.

Analysts say the deal highlights the intensifying global race for AI computing capacity, with leading firms locking in long-term access to scarce high-end chips. ByteDance and Alibaba are also reported to be among the largest clients of data centers in Southeast Asia.

The deal also illustrates the deepening entanglement of US and Chinese technology ecosystems despite escalating trade controls. While Washington has tightened restrictions on chip exports to China, cloud leasing through third-country data centers remains a permitted channel — one that policymakers in both capitals are now scrutinising closely.

For Oracle, the agreement represents one of the largest cloud contracts in Asia, strengthening its position in the region’s fast-growing data center market. For Tencent, secure long-term access to advanced computing is central to its ambitions in large AI models and agent-based tools, including features for its WeChat super-app, which serves more than 1.4 billion users.

The arrangement comes as governments on both sides of the Pacific weigh tighter controls on advanced semiconductors, raising questions about how long such offshore leasing channels will remain available.