Oracle reportedly cancels planned $7 billion Tencent chip lease

Oracle reportedly canceled a planned five-year chip-leasing agreement with Tencent worth an estimated $7 billion, according to a Financial Times report published Wednesday. The deal would have given Tencent access to about 100,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips in Oracle data centers in Southeast Asia. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and Oracle, Tencent and the White House did not respond to its requests for comment. The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that U.S. officials raised concerns with Oracle about the agreement. It also reported that senior officials from Guangdong, where Tencent is based, visited the company and urged it to support Chinese-made chips. The reported interventions and their role in the cancellation have not been independently confirmed in the reports. Under the proposed lease, Tencent would have rented computing capacity across several Oracle data centers for five years. The arrangement was reported to be Tencent’s largest overseas lease. The chips are restricted from sale in China under rules set by Washington and Beijing, and the deal would have allowed Tencent to use chips it could not...