According to reports, a consortium of US investors, including Oracle and Silver Lake, is set to acquire around 80% of TikTok’s US business, with ByteDance retaining less than 20%.

The transaction is intended to meet the requirements of the 2024 Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which compels divestment or faces a ban.

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order declaring that the new arrangement complies with the law, while a 120-day enforcement pause will give time to finalise the structure.

Oracle’s role goes beyond investment. It is slated to manage TikTok’s US data infrastructure, storing all American user data onshore within Oracle-operated facilities.

Reports also suggest Oracle will oversee the retraining of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, with a licensed copy to be leased from ByteDance before being rebuilt using US-sourced data under US oversight. The precise technical and governance details remain under discussion.

For the connectivity sector, the significance lies in data sovereignty and infrastructure. TikTok remains one of the world’s largest generators of mobile video traffic, and the platform’s algorithm is central to how those workloads evolve.

Bringing algorithm oversight and data storage under US jurisdiction reflects wider trends of localisation, echoing requirements that China and other governments already place on digital platforms.

The deal also positions Oracle as more than a traditional enterprise cloud player. While AWS, Microsoft and Google dominate consumer app hosting, Oracle’s central role in the TikTok arrangement could strengthen its credibility as a secure provider of sensitive, large-scale workloads.

“The structure ensures that data belonging to US users will remain onshore, secured within Oracle-managed infrastructure,” officials familiar with the matter said. However, uncertainties remain over how the licensing of the algorithm will satisfy lawmakers who sought full divestment.

For network operators and data centre players, the implications are clear. As AI workloads intensify – from recommendation engines to content moderation – demand for ultra-low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnects will only grow. TikTok’s traffic, already a defining feature of global mobile usage, is set to become even more resource-intensive.

The deal still requires approvals in Washington and Beijing. If concluded, it could set a precedent for platform localisation worldwide, with direct consequences for international connectivity, cloud deployment, and the balance of power between hyperscalers and emerging neo-scalers.

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