Tencent Leases 100,000 AI Chips from Oracle in a $7bn Deal, FT Reports
Tencent has signed a five-year lease to use about 100,000 advanced AI chips from Oracle. People familiar with the matter told The Financial Times (FT) about the deal. The chips, which are not available in China, sit in several Oracle data centres in South-East Asia.
The deal, signed this year, is worth approximately $7bn, and Tencent is paying about 30% upfront, as reported by Zijing Wu. It is the Chinese company’s largest overseas lease deal with a US cloud provider. US export rules allow overseas cloud leases like this, according to the FT.
Chinese tech groups have rented compute abroad before. ByteDance brought in nearly 75% of Nscale’s 2025 sales, as shown in the UK cloud firm’s filings.
Tencent’s AI Bill
Tencent’s cash flow turned negative in the second quarter, at RMB 13.8bn ($2.06bn). According to the FT, it was the first negative figure in more than a decade. Chief financial officer John Lo attributed it to heavy AI infrastructure spending and prepayments for compute, as reported by DatacenterDynamics.
“We’re comfortable in making significant investments in AI because not only is there a substantial upside potential, there is also clear downside protection,” Tencent president Martin Lau has stated.
Executives mentioned that the compute would initially be used for training bigger Hunyuan models, followed by running them. Later, Tencent Cloud could rent it out. Tencent also backs Chinese chipmaker Enflame, which nearly tripled on its Shanghai debut in September.
A Lift for Oracle
Oracle shares barely moved on Thursday after the report, as noted by Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). They had fallen 29.5% this year going into the day. Oracle’s free cash flow has been below zero for several quarters, IBD reported, due to its AI spending. The company is spending on data centres more than it earns in a quarter.
Story by Cristian Dina
Cristian Dina is the CRO at The Next Web. He has interviewed 300+ industry leaders and authored the book King of Networking, establishing himself as one of the most connected and respected voices in the tech ecosystem. At just 23 years old, Cristian was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 2025 list, representing a new generation of tech builders, bold thinkers who move fast, build with purpose, and create real impact.