Oracle Cancels $7 Billion Tencent AI Chip-Leasing Deal After U.S. Officials Raise Concerns, FT Reports

ORCL has scrapped a $7 billion chip-leasing contract with Tencent amid increased pressure from the Trump administration, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. Under the five-year lease, signed earlier this year, the Chinese internet giant would have had access to as many as 100,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips in Oracle data centers across Southeast Asia. GuruFocus described it as Tencent's largest ever overseas deal.

According to the report, the contract was canceled after U.S. officials raised concerns with Oracle about the arrangement, and Tencent was also scrutinized by Beijing, which asked it to seek domestic chips. The sources describe pressure from officials rather than a formal regulatory order, and Reuters said it could not immediately verify the FT report; Oracle, Tencent and the White House did not respond to its requests for comment. The Next Web, also citing the FT, reported that Tencent was to pay about 30% of the contract value upfront.

The cancellation lands in the same week the FT reported that NVDA told its cloud computing clients they must sell at least 51% of their capacity to non-Chinese companies. Leasing capacity in overseas data centers has been one route for Chinese firms to reach chips they cannot buy at home, and the two reports together suggest Washington is now pressing on that route as well as on direct exports. ByteDance and Alibaba still hold large chip-leasing deals with U.S. providers, and Oracle is a major supplier to ByteDance in Asia with several data centers in Malaysia.

For Oracle, the timing is awkward: the report came two days after the company filed to raise $20 billion through a note sale and a concurrent stock offering to fund its AI infrastructure buildout. Oracle shares were down 2.30% in premarket trading on Wednesday. What to watch next is whether Oracle confirms the cancellation, whether the capacity is quickly re-leased to other customers, and whether U.S. officials turn to the ByteDance and Alibaba arrangements next.