Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company Moonshot AI has reportedly rented a batch of Nvidia’s top AI chips in China, potentially breaching US controls.
A document reviewed by Bloomberg shows that Moonshot AI signed a contract in August this year to rent 32 Super Micro Computer servers equipped with Nvidia B300 graphics processing units (GPUs), the most powerful AI accelerators currently on the market. The sale of such products to China without an export licence could breach US rules.
According to the documents, the servers are valued at a total of 432 million yuan (S$82.73 million) and are located in Qingyang, Gansu province. The city in northwestern China is one of eight computing hubs planned by China.
The documents include two financing agreements signed on 4 August between the servers’ owner, Lingmeixin (Beijing) Technology, and Beijing Zhongguancun Bank, which financed the purchase.
In a statement attached to the agreements, Lingmeixin said the hardware bought with the financing was designated for fulfilling its service contract with Moonshot AI. “Moonshot AI only has the right to use the computing service. They hold no ownership of the equipment.”
The agreements value each server at 13.5 million yuan, about 350% above US market prices. This striking premium shows that, under US export controls, the supply of advanced chips falls far short of strong demand, giving rise to a black market.
Under Chinese law, companies must submit documents relating to financing agreements to a database maintained by the Credit Reference Centre of the People’s Bank of China. Beijing Zhongguancun Bank filed the documents on 6 August, two days after the agreements were signed.
However, after Bloomberg approached Moonshot AI, Lingmeixin and Beijing Zhongguancun Bank for comment last Tuesday (3 November), the documents available in the database no longer contained any references to Moonshot AI.
A Moonshot AI spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the company currently had no business dealings with Lingmeixin. “We neither participated in nor authorized the related financing or guarantee arrangements, and had no knowledge of them.”
An Nvidia spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the entities involved in the August purchase “are not Nvidia customers”, adding that “we do not provide replacement products, service, or support to them”.
Since Moonshot AI released its breakthrough Kimi K3 model in July, the US has repeatedly accused the start-up of using restricted Blackwell-series chips to train some of its most advanced AI models.
Moonshot AI is now developing a successor to Kimi K3 and plans to list in Hong Kong as early as the beginning of next year.
