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Chinese artificial intelligence lab Moonshot AI tapped Nvidia's most advanced chips this summer despite the US block, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing documents filed with Beijing regulators.
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The developer of the stellar AI model Kimi signed contracts in August to rent 32 Super Micro Computer servers equipped with Nvidia's most advanced AI processors, B300 GPUs, valued at 432 million yuan (HK$507.28 million), the report said.
The contracts suggested that each server was valued at 13.5 million yuan, roughly 350 percent higher than the going rate in the US, the report added.
This comes amid intensified tensions between the US chip giant and China, as Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang admitted to an affair with an alleged Chinese intelligence asset, Alice Huang.
Last year, the US government reportedly investigated Megaspeed, where Alice Huang used to work as an executive, for smuggling Nvidia chips to China.
US has blocked Nvidia’s most advanced chip sales to China since 2022 amid the global race for AI, while Chinese AI firms circumvented the restrictions by renting servers outside China, especially in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia.
Last month, ByteDance, Alibaba (9988) and Tencent (0700) reportedly ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia's new RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards with a collective sticker price of over US$35 billion (HK$273 billion).
Super Micro had also earlier faced a Department of Justice probe after three of its employees were accused of illegally selling chips to China.
