Oracle Scraps $7 Billion AI Chip Leasing Deal With Tencent After Pressure From Washington and Beijing

Oracle has canceled a $7 billion, five-year agreement to lease approximately 100,000 advanced AI chips to Tencent, according to the Financial Times, after facing pressure from both the Trump administration and Chinese officials. The deal, which would have been Tencent's largest overseas chip leasing arrangement, was structured across multiple Oracle data centers in Southeast Asia and included an upfront payment of roughly 30 percent of the total value.

The arrangement was designed to give Tencent access to cutting-edge computing hardware that is unavailable inside China due to U.S. export restrictions and Chinese regulations. U.S. officials approached Oracle with concerns about the agreement, while senior Chinese officials separately visited Tencent and urged the company to support domestic chipmakers instead. Although overseas AI chip leasing is not explicitly prohibited under existing rules, the deal collapsed under simultaneous pressure from both governments.

Oracle, Tencent, and the White House had not publicly commented on the cancellation as of the time of reporting. The episode illustrates the tightening squeeze on Chinese technology companies seeking access to advanced AI computing capacity abroad, as Washington and Beijing each push their own agendas on semiconductor access.