Chinese AI lab Moonshot turned to Europe for Nvidia Blackwell access amid U.S. China curbs, sources tell CNBC

Moonshot AI, a Chinese artificial intelligence lab that the White House accused of accessing Nvidia advanced chips remotely in East Asia, has sought access to the chips through data centers in Europe, sources have told CNBC.

Deals have been discussed this year for Moonshot to rent capacity from neoclouds hosting Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, at facilities in Europe, four people familiar with the matter said. They asked not to be named because they were discussing private information.

Nvidia's effective monopoly over the most powerful chips has made U.S. export controls a key tool in Washington's effort to preserve its advantage over China in the AI race. American AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic are locked in a training and pricing battle with Chinese developers, including Moonshot AI, which makes the Kimi family of models.

Moonshot was looking to lease capacity powered by Nvidia's Blackwell systems, advanced chips currently subject to those export controls which effectively ban their import into China, three of the sources told CNBC.

In July, the White House said the Chinese AI lab had accessed Nvidia's Blackwell chips via a facility in Thailand.

U.S. export controls restrict the shipment of Nvidia's most advanced chips to China, but remote access via overseas data centers offers a loophole. Current law does not give regulators broad authority to control companies' access to those chips through cloud services hosted overseas.

Moonshot, Nvidia, the White House, the U.S. Department of Commerce, China's embassy in the U.K. and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Chinese developers have made notable capability gains in the past six months and greater access to Nvidia chips could put even more pressure on their American rivals.

To lease Nvidia computing power in Europe, a Chinese AI company would typically rent capacity from a non-Chinese neocloud or data center operator that can purchase advanced chips.

Moonshot was interested in leasing capacity on clusters for inference, which refers to serving models to end users, in Europe, two of the sources said. One of the sources said they were also aware of interest in clusters for training.

Talks for arrangements that would see Moonshot rent access to clusters of 8,000 or more Blackwell GPUs hosted in the region have taken place, one source said. They described the Chinese AI lab as "very aggressive" in its pursuit of more computing power.

One of the sources told CNBC that talks on securing Moonshot compute in Europe had taken place since the White House said it had done so via Thailand. Moonshot did not comment at the time.