Tencent scores 100,000 offshore AI chip deal with Oracle for $7 billion despite climbing prices

Oracle has reportedly made a deal with Tencent for a five-year lease at several Oracle data centers in Southeast Asia, covering about 100,000 advanced AI chips unavailable in China. The deal is estimated to be worth about $7 billion, which would come out to about $1.60 per chip per hour over five years, with about 30% upfront, according to a report by the Financial Times (FT). The deal lands as compute rental prices continue to climb, per Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell on Tencent’s August 12 earnings call. Neither company has commented on the report, but such leases are legal under current U.S. rules, per the FT.

The estimated chip-hour price is around 43% less than the roughly $2.80 per GPU-hour for Nvidia’s H100 with a one-year contract, per research firm SemiAnalysis in August. …