Chinese AI lab Moonshot turned to Europe for Nvidia Blackwell access amid U.S. China curbs, sources tell CNBC
Moonshot AI has sought leasing agreements with neoclouds for advanced chips in Europe, as U.S. export controls restrict their import to China.
TL;DR
- Moonshot AI, a Chinese AI lab, is exploring options to lease Nvidia GPUs from data centers in Europe.
- This comes after the White House accused Moonshot of remotely accessing Nvidia chips in East Asia.
- U.S. export controls restrict the import of advanced Nvidia chips, like Blackwell systems, into China.
- Remote access via overseas data centers could be a loophole in current U.S. regulations.
- Moonshot AI is reportedly interested in leasing capacity for both inference and potentially training on clusters of 8,000 or more Blackwell GPUs.
- Lawmakers in the U.S. have proposed the Remote Access Security Act (RASA) to expand export controls to cloud-based access.
- Nvidia has reportedly instructed cloud providers to sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese customers.