Walter Bloomberg Relays CNBC Reporting That Moonshot Explored Renting Nvidia Blackwell Capacity in Europe
CHINESE AI LAB SEEKS NVIDIA BLACKWELL CHIPS THROUGH EUROPEAN DATA CENTERS China's Moonshot AI has reportedly explored renting Nvidia's advanced Blackwell computing capacity in Europe, potentially circumventing US restrictions on chip exports to China. According to CNBC, discussions included access to clusters of 8,000 or more Blackwell GPUs, with Moonshot potentially offering 30%–50% higher upfront payments than non-Chinese customers. US export controls restrict physical chip shipments to China, but remote access through overseas cloud providers remains a regulatory gap. Washington is considering legislation to close that loophole.
Context
If Chinese labs can rent frontier Nvidia clusters abroad, US export controls on chips matter less for training large models.
Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) relays a CNBC report. Moonshot AI is the Chinese lab behind Kimi models, including Kimi K3.1 Pro whose weights were released on Nov 4. US rules limit shipping advanced Nvidia chips to China.
Deep dive
Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) posted on Nov 5 that China's Moonshot AI has reportedly explored renting Nvidia's advanced Blackwell computing capacity in Europe, potentially getting around US limits on chip exports to China.
According to the post, which cites CNBC, talks included access to clusters of 8,000 or more Blackwell GPUs, with Moonshot potentially offering 30% to 50% higher upfront payments than customers outside China. The post says US export controls restrict physical chip shipments to China, but remote access through overseas cloud providers remains a regulatory gap, and Washington is considering legislation to close that loophole.
These claims are secondhand from CNBC via Walter Bloomberg. They are not confirmed by Moonshot or Nvidia in the post.
The story matters because open weight releases from Chinese labs already compete with US models. Cheap remote access to Blackwell would widen that race even if boards never enter China.
The post passed about 130,000 views.
What to expect next
Watch for the full CNBC report, and for any comment from Nvidia, Moonshot or European cloud providers. US lawmakers may move bills on remote access. Other Chinese labs' cloud deals in Europe or the Middle East would show how wide the gap is. Training claims that need large Blackwell clusters will be read against this report. Allied governments may also tighten rules on who can rent advanced GPUs without an export license.