Moonshot seeks 8,000 Blackwell chips in Europe

China's artificial intelligence company Moonshot sought to rent more than 8,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips from cloud service providers in Europe, according to CNBC.

The network reported that the company sought to secure advanced computing capacity outside US chip export restrictions, through arrangements that keep the hardware outside China while Moonshot pays for remote access to it.

CNBC quoted three people familiar with the matter describing the efforts as very aggressive, while no deal has been confirmed so far.

The attempt reflects Chinese companies' race to secure advanced Blackwell chips, as cloud renting allows access to computing capacity without moving devices across borders, which makes it a practical alternative under export restrictions.

What do these terms mean?

Blackwell: A family of advanced graphics chips from Nvidia dedicated to training and running AI models.

Export restrictions: Rules that prevent or restrict the sale of certain technology products to specific countries or companies.

Cloud computing: Using computers and services over the internet instead of buying and running hardware in-house.

Computing capacity: The total power of computers and chips available to carry out complex calculations.

Cloud renting: Paying a fee to use hardware or computing services hosted by another provider.