Moonshot AI Utilizes 20,000 NVIDIA Chips Through Alibaba

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI has confirmed that it is using approximately 20,000 NVIDIA AI chips through Alibaba's cloud infrastructure. Moonshot AI's open-source AI model, 'Kimi K3', has recently garnered attention for demonstrating performance close to that of the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Bloomberg reported that Moonshot AI is leveraging NVIDIA chips through a contract with Alibaba. While Alibaba denied the supply of H200 chips, it acknowledged providing NVIDIA chips to Moonshot AI. The Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy claimed that Moonshot AI secured Blackwell chips in violation of U.S. export regulations, although no specific evidence was presented. Bloomberg explained that while the U.S. restricts direct purchases of NVIDIA chips by Chinese companies, leasing through foreign cloud providers is permitted. This case illustrates the reality that Chinese AI companies can develop globally competitive AI models despite U.S. semiconductor regulations.