Oracle cancels the $7 billion artificial intelligence chip deal with China's Tencent under US pressure - report The American technology giant Oracle has canceled a five-year, $7 billion agreement to provide the Chinese company Tencent with access to up to 100,000 advanced AI chips, following pressure from the Trump administration, reports the Financial Times. The chips were to be leased through data centers in Southeast Asia, allowing Tencent to access computing power unavailable in China due to export restrictions. US officials have reportedly raised concerns with Oracle, while Chinese authorities have separately urged Tencent to prioritize domestically manufactured chips. The cancellation comes as Chinese AI developers are rapidly closing the technology gap with their US rivals. Stanford University's 2026 AI Index found that the performance gap between top Chinese and American models had narrowed to just 2.7 percent by March, with Chinese systems occasionally matching or surpassing US competitors. China's DeepSeek has also demonstrated a cost advantage: a US government evaluation found its V4 model more cost-effective than a similar American model in five out of seven benchmarks. substack | talk.

Oracle cancels the $7 billion artificial intelligence chip deal with China's Tencent under US pressure - report The American technology giant Oracle has canceled a five-year, $7 billion agreement to provide the Chinese company Tencent with access to up to 100,000 advanced AI chips, following pressure from the Trump administration, reports the Financial Times. The chips were to be leased through data centers in Southeast Asia, allowing Tencent to access computing power unavailable in China due to export restrictions. US officials have reportedly raised concerns with Oracle, while Chinese authorities have separately urged Tencent to prioritize domestically manufactured chips. The cancellation comes as Chinese AI developers are rapidly closing the technology gap with their US rivals. Stanford University's 2026 AI Index found that the performance gap between top Chinese and American models had narrowed to just 2.7 percent by March, with Chinese systems occasionally matching or surpassing US competitors. China's DeepSeek has also demonstrated a cost advantage: a US government evaluation found its V4 model more cost-effective than a similar American model in five out of seven benchmarks. substack | talk.