Oracle has reportedly agreed to a five-year lease worth approximately $7 billion with Tencent, giving the Chinese tech giant access to around 100,000 advanced AI chips hosted in Oracle data centers across Southeast Asia. The deal, which would be Tencent’s largest overseas bet on AI infrastructure so far, would allow the company to route around US export controls by renting compute power without the hardware landing on Chinese soil. About 30% of the total is said to be paid upfront, and the agreement was first reported by the Financial Times on September 30, 2026, then by Reuters, though neither company has officially confirmed it. Oracle shares climbed nearly 2% in premarket trading while Tencent shares slipped slightly. The reported lease would strengthen Oracle’s position in the fast-growing AI cloud market and raises questions about how US regulators will respond to the growing practice of Chinese firms renting AI compute abroad.
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