Chinese AI lab Moonshot reportedly looked at European data centers to access Nvidia chips, report claims

Moonshot AI, a Chinese lab behind the Kimi AI model, is reportedly exploring European data centers to acquire the latest Nvidia Blackwell GPUs for their inferencing needs, according to a CNBC report. The company is in discussions with at least one European data center to lease clusters containing 8,000 or more GPUs for inference purposes, along with seeking compute capacity for model training.

This move comes as U.S. companies face restrictions on obtaining Nvidia Blackwell and other AI GPUs with U.S. technologies, due to export bans. However, Chinese AI labs have discovered a loophole, renting compute power from foreign data centers with acquired Nvidia chips. Despite the U.S. House passing the Remote Access Security Act, the bill must still clear the Senate and White House before becoming law.

The U.S. and China are engaged in an AI arms race, with Beijing's open-weight models trailing behind U.S. models by just a few months. Despite efforts to limit Chinese AI labs' hardware access, like the temporary export of Nvidia H200 chips to China, Beijing has blocked H200 imports at the border, forcing companies to explore alternative options.

Moonshot also has a limited window to secure compute capacity outside of China, as Nvidia is reportedly instructing its clients to restrict business to protect against serving more than 49% of capacity to Chinese entities. This situation could potentially bolster bipartisan legislation aimed at addressing the issue.