China’s Tencent leases 100,000 chips from Oracle to accelerate AI push, FT reports

Business Recorder, citing the Financial Times, reported that Chinese technology group Tencent has signed its largest overseas lease with US cloud provider Oracle, gaining access to around 100,000 advanced AI chips that are not available in China. The five-year arrangement, agreed earlier this year, spans several Oracle data centres in south-east Asia, according to the newspaper's account citing people familiar with the matter. The contract is valued at roughly $7 billion, with about 30 per cent paid upfront.

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and neither Oracle nor Tencent had responded to its requests for comment. The deal reflects the rapidly growing computing requirements of Tencent's AI expansion, as the company steps up work on large language models. Tencent had also recently released a preview of an image-generation model for professional creators, while Chinese firms race to secure AI chips amid tighter US export curbs and Beijing's push for home-grown alternatives.