Tencent signs US$7bn lease for AI chips with Oracle, FT reports

Tencent has agreed a five-year lease for about 100,000 advanced AI chips from Oracle, worth an estimated US$7 billion, according to the Financial Times. The deal highlights surging demand for chips not available in China amid US export curbs.

Chinese technology giant Tencent has signed its largest overseas lease deal with US cloud provider Oracle to access about 100,000 advanced AI chips that are not available in China, the Financial Times reported on 1 October, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, Tencent this year agreed to a five-year lease across multiple Oracle data centres in south-east Asia. The deal is estimated to be worth about US$7 billion, with an upfront payment of about 30 per cent, the report said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Oracle and Tencent did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the report.

The deal highlights the surging computing needs of Tencent's AI expansion, as the company ramps up investment in developing and deploying large language models. Tencent recently released a preview version of its new AI image-generation model for professional creators, offering text-to-image and image-to-image capabilities, among other features.

Chinese firms have been racing to secure AI chips as US export curbs tighten and Beijing promotes home-grown alternatives to US technology providers.