China’s Moonshot claims to build models with fewer high-end AI chips than US rivals use

Chinese artificial intelligence firm Moonshot AI continues to develop AI models with fewer high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) than what its US rivals use, according to the Beijing-based start-up’s executives.

He also confirmed that Kimi K2 Thinking, a new reasoning variant of its open-source Kimi K2 model, was trained on Nvidia’s older H800 GPUs, which were banned for export to China in late 2023.

That reflected how Chinese AI companies have been making the most of available resources on the mainland to create cutting-edge models, despite stringent US tech export restrictions.

With Kimi K2 Thinking’s release last week, Moonshot AI – a unicorn valued at US$3.3 billion and backed by Chinese tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings – ignited fresh debate about another “DeepSeek moment” in the global AI industry, while raising questions about recent efforts by OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman to secure more than US$1.4 trillion in infrastructure deals with the likes of Nvidia, Broadcom and Oracle.