Oracle and Tencent have reportedly agreed to a five-year data centre lease across Oracle facilities in Southeast Asia, in a deal estimated at around $7 billion, according to a report by the Financial Times.
The reported agreement would provide Tencent with access to approximately 100,000 advanced AI chips that are not currently available in China, potentially supporting the company’s expanding requirements for artificial intelligence computing infrastructure.
The deal highlights the growing importance of overseas data centre capacity for Chinese technology companies as they expand their AI development and deployment capabilities amid restrictions on access to advanced computing hardware.
Tencent Expands AI Infrastructure
Tencent has been expanding its Hunyuan family of AI models as well as developing agentic AI products, increasing demand for high-performance computing infrastructure.
Access to advanced AI chips has become a key consideration for Chinese technology companies as restrictions have limited the availability of some of the most advanced processors within the country. As a result, companies are increasingly exploring computing capacity outside China.
Tencent is among several major Chinese technology companies that have been reported to be using Southeast Asian data centre capacity to support their AI operations.
Southeast Asia Gains Importance
The reported Oracle-Tencent agreement also underscores the growing strategic importance of Southeast Asia’s data centre market. The region has attracted significant investment in cloud infrastructure and data centres as demand for AI computing, cloud services and digital infrastructure continues to rise.
For Oracle, the reported deal would represent a significant expansion of its infrastructure business in the region, while Tencent would gain access to additional overseas computing capacity for its growing AI operations.
However, the reported agreement has not been independently confirmed. Reuters reported that it could not independently verify the Financial Times’ report.
If completed as reported, the five-year arrangement would represent one of the more significant recent investments in overseas AI computing infrastructure involving a Chinese technology company, while reflecting the increasingly global nature of the infrastructure supporting the AI industry.
By: Sanya Sharma
