Moonshot AI trained Kimi K3 on Nvidia Blackwell chips despite US and China bans, but it's not certain

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI reportedly trained its revolutionary Kimi K3 model using Nvidia Blackwell accelerators, circumventing both US export controls and China's import restrictions. To obtain enough Blackwell chips, the company partnered with two local data center operators that had acquired the accelerators despite the bans. Moonshot AI then developed a method to combine multiple Blackwell servers across different data centers to provide sufficient compute for training. The emergence of Kimi K3 has fueled a new wave of AI development competition in China, where domestic accelerators lag one or two generations behind Nvidia's hardware. For inference, Moonshot AI uses Nvidia HGX H20 accelerators, which are permitted in China. The company recommends at least 64 H20 chips to run Kimi K3, and demand has already exhausted available computing capacity. Additionally, Moonshot AI has purchased Nvidia GB300 systems and leased GB300 capacity in Thailand, according to White House AI advisor Michael Kratsios. The purchase violates both US and Chinese bans, while the lease remains legal as Washington has not yet prohibited Chinese companies from renting sanctioned equipment.