# CNBC: Moonshot sought Nvidia Blackwell capacity in Europe despite US curbs

> Unnamed sources told CNBC the Kimi developer discussed renting clusters of 8,000-plus Blackwell GPUs from European neoclouds. No deal has been confirmed.

- Publisher: JARRUS (@jarrus.tech), thejarrus.com
- Story date: Nov. 5, 2026 (2026-11-05)
- Published: 2026-11-07
- Tags: Nvidia, China, Chips and hardware
- URL: https://thejarrus.com/en/news/moonshot-europe-blackwell/

### A single-source report from CNBC

Moonshot AI, the developer of the Kimi models, discussed renting capacity this year from neoclouds that host Nvidia GPUs at facilities in Europe, CNBC reported on Nov. 5, citing four unnamed people. The report rests on a single outlet; no other publication has independently confirmed it, and no deal has been confirmed. Moonshot, founded in Beijing in 2023, did not respond to CNBC. Neither did Nvidia, the White House, the US Commerce Department or China's foreign ministry.

Three of the sources said Moonshot wanted capacity on Blackwell systems, whose import into China is effectively banned by US export controls. Two said the aim was inference, serving models to users, and one said there was also interest in training clusters. One source said talks covered clusters of **8,000 or more Blackwell GPUs** and described Moonshot as "very aggressive." Another said it had been proposed that Moonshot pay 30% to 50% more upfront than a non-Chinese customer. According to CNBC, neoclouds and financiers can charge Chinese customers more upfront to hedge against a future ban on remote access.

### The remote access loophole

US export controls restrict shipments of Nvidia's most advanced chips to China, but they do not cover cloud access through data centers abroad. CNBC noted that the White House said in July that Moonshot had accessed Blackwell chips through a facility in Thailand. The Remote Access Security Act, which would extend controls to cloud access, passed the House in January but has not passed the Senate.

The Financial Times reported that Nvidia told cloud providers selling access to its chips that at least 51% of their services must go to non-Chinese customers. An Nvidia spokesperson said that if the world's clouds rely on foreign-made chips, the model and application layers will be foreign-built as well. Around the release of Kimi K3, Moonshot temporarily paused new subscriptions because of demand.

## Sources

1. [CNBC: Chinese AI lab Moonshot turned to Europe for Nvidia Blackwell access amid U.S. China curbs, sources tell CNBC, Nov. 5, 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/05/moonshot-ai-nvidia-chips-europe-china.html)

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