Oracle cancels $7 billion Tencent chip lease after US pressure, Financial Times reports

Oracle has cancelled its chip leasing deal with Tencent. The Financial Times reported on November 4 that Oracle abandoned the contract, worth an estimated $7 billion, after pressure from the Trump administration; Reuters, relaying the report, said US officials had approached Oracle to raise concerns about the arrangement. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and Oracle, Tencent and the White House did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. (Cover photo is a file photo of Oracle headquarters.)

The original deal: five years, about 100,000 chips, Southeast Asian data centres

The Financial Times reported last month that Tencent had signed its largest overseas lease ever, valued at an estimated $7 billion over five years. Under the deal, Tencent would have gained access to about 100,000 advanced AI chips through several Oracle data centres in Southeast Asia; the report said the chips were not available in China due to curbs from Washington and Beijing. The deal was never formally announced by either company.

Pressure from both sides: US concerns and a push for domestic Chinese chips

According to the reporting, US officials raised concerns with Oracle, after which Oracle cancelled the deal; separately, Tencent received visits from senior officials in Guangdong, where the company is based, who asked it to support domestic Chinese chips. The reporting did not specify the content of the US concerns, nor the exact timing or terms of the cancellation.

Market reaction and what remains unconfirmed

Oracle shares fell more than 2% in overnight trading after the report. Still unconfirmed are the specific chip models covered, whether the cancellation involves any compensation or replacement arrangement, and whether Tencent will turn to other overseas computing sources or accelerate its use of domestic chips. Neither company has issued a public statement on the cancellation.