- A White House official has accused the Chinese AI company Moonshot AI of accessing servers using Nvidia GB300 chips, despite U.S. export controls on these advanced AI chips.
- According to Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Moonshot purchased GB300-equipped servers and accessed these systems in Thailand, likely for training AI models.
- CNBC reported contacting Nvidia, Moonshot AI, the White House, and the Chinese Embassy in the UK for response, but no official comments were provided at the time of publication.
- The allegation emerged shortly after Moonshot AI launched Kimi K3, an open-weight model with 2.8 trillion parameters, which the company claims nears or exceeds some benchmarks of Anthropic Fable 5 and OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol.
- The Nvidia GB300 chip remains part of the advanced AI chip group restricted by the U.S. for export to China, even though it predates the latest Vera Rubin generation.
- The article states the U.S. is seeking to close export control loopholes, including Chinese access to AI computing power abroad. The proposed Remote Access Security Act (RASA) aims to extend controls to remote access of critical hardware and software via cloud platforms.
- Expert Keegan McBride noted that Chinese companies seeking to use U.S. computing infrastructure both inside and outside China shows that U.S. computing power remains a vital foundation of the current AI race.
- The article also recalled reports that ByteDance was believed to be building computing capacity outside China to support AI development.
- Beyond the chip issue, Michael Kratsios also accused Moonshot AI of using distillation methods on Anthropic’s Fable model to develop Kimi K3. This is an allegation that has not been publicly verified or proven.
- U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Chinese enterprises conducting industrial-scale distillation attacks and infringing on intellectual property rights could face sanctions and be placed on the Entity List.
📌 The escalation of the AI competition between the U.S. and China is visible not only in model capabilities but also in access to computing infrastructure and intellectual property issues. The White House allegations regarding Moonshot AI’s use of Nvidia GB300 chips in Thailand and the distillation of Anthropic’s model currently remain claims from U.S. officials; as of the article’s publication, Moonshot AI and Nvidia have not provided official responses.
