Oracle Cancels $7 Billion Tencent AI Chip Lease Under U.S. Pressure, FT Reports
The five-year deal would have given Tencent access to about 100,000 advanced AI chips in Southeast Asia, according to the Financial Times.
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Oracle has canceled a chip-leasing contract with Tencent, estimated at $7 billion, after pressure from the Trump administration, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report.
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At a glance (all per the FT)
| Deal | Tencent’s largest overseas lease, with Oracle |
| Estimated value | $7 billion |
| Chips | About 100,000 advanced AI chips |
| Term | Five years |
| Location | Multiple Oracle data centers in Southeast Asia |
| Status | Canceled, per the FT; not independently verified |
What the FT reported
According to the Financial Times, as relayed by Reuters on November 4, Oracle canceled its chip-leasing contract with Tencent after bowing to pressure from the Trump administration. The FT cited people familiar with the matter.
The newspaper reported that U.S. officials approached Oracle to raise concerns about the Tencent deal. It also reported that Tencent received visits from top officials in Guangdong, the province where the company is based, who asked it to support domestic Chinese chips.
Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report. Oracle, Tencent and the White House did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The deal that was reportedly canceled
The FT first reported the agreement in October. It described the deal as Tencent’s largest overseas lease, worth an estimated $7 billion.
Under the agreement as the FT described it, Tencent would lease capacity for five years across multiple Oracle data centers in Southeast Asia. The deal would have given Tencent access to about 100,000 advanced AI chips that were not available in China because of curbs imposed by both Washington and Beijing.
That structure matters to the story. The FT’s account puts the capacity outside mainland China, and the reported cancellation follows outreach from officials on both sides: U.S. officials to Oracle, and Guangdong officials to Tencent.
A wider squeeze on Chinese customers
The report came shortly after a separate FT scoop, also covered by DatacenterDynamics. The FT reported that Nvidia had told its data center partners that at least 51% of their services must go to customers outside China.
Together, the two FT reports describe pressure from more than one direction on U.S. companies’ dealings with Chinese AI customers. Neither company involved in the Oracle deal has confirmed the cancellation on the record.
What remains unconfirmed
It matters how this story reached readers. The account starts with the Financial Times, which relied on unnamed people familiar with the matter. Reuters then summarized the FT report, said it could not verify it independently, and received no responses from Oracle, Tencent or the White House. Until one of those parties comments, the cancellation, its timing and the reasons behind it all rest on the FT’s sources. Nothing in the reporting describes the deal’s financial impact on either company.
What to watch
Whether Oracle or Tencent confirms the cancellation, whether either company discloses any financial impact, and whether other cloud providers report similar changes to contracts with Chinese customers.
More coverage is on our Artificial Intelligence hub.
How we reported this
Every claim about the cancellation comes from the Financial Times, as relayed by Reuters, which could not verify it independently. We did not have access to the FT article itself. Any financial impact, termination fees or the specific chips involved could not be verified and were left out.
Published and fact-checked November 4, 2026.
Sources
- Reuters via U.S. News: Oracle abandons $7 billion Tencent AI deal under Trump pressure, FT reports
- The Business Times: Oracle scraps US$7 billion deal to lease chips to Tencent under Trump pressure, FT reports
- DatacenterDynamics: Oracle drops Tencent as cloud client, losing multi-billion-dollar contract
DailyMech used AI tools to help research and draft this article; it was fact-checked by our editors.