Moonshot AI Demands 30% Revenue Cut From Tech Giants for Kimi K3 Hosting Rights

TLDR

• Chinese AI developer Moonshot AI negotiates with tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, and Google for cloud hosting of Kimi K3
• The Beijing-based company demands as much as 30% of revenues generated from K3 services on major cloud platforms
• If successful, this would represent the first significant profit-sharing agreement between a Chinese AI developer and American cloud providers
• Key hurdles remain, including profit distribution terms, data governance, and usage tracking mechanisms
• The company confronts American regulatory challenges amid claims it leveraged Anthropic’s Fable technology, allegations Moonshot refutes

Beijing-based AI developer Moonshot AI has entered preliminary discussions with technology giants Microsoft, Amazon, and Google regarding hosting arrangements for its Kimi K3 artificial intelligence system on their respective cloud infrastructures, Reuters reports citing informed sources.

The Chinese company is demanding as much as 30% of all revenues generated through K3-powered services operating on Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud platforms.

Should negotiations prove successful, this arrangement would establish the first substantial revenue-sharing partnership linking a Chinese artificial intelligence enterprise with American cloud infrastructure providers.

According to sources, these discussions remain in preliminary phases, with no certainty that finalized agreements will materialize.

Representatives from Moonshot, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google declined to provide statements on the matter.

Understanding Kimi K3

Kimi K3 represents an open-weight artificial intelligence system featuring 2.8 trillion parameters, which Moonshot claims establishes it as the largest publicly available model globally. Open-weight architectures allow unrestricted downloading and customization.

However, industry analysts indicate that despite this accessibility, the majority of potential users will avoid self-hosting due to prohibitive computational infrastructure expenses.

Arena.ai places Kimi K3 at the top of benchmarks evaluating web interface construction capabilities. According to Artificial Analysis, the model demonstrates performance levels equivalent to OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8.

Moonshot has previously established revenue-sharing arrangements with smaller cloud service providers. Chinese IT services company Chinasoft International confirmed such a partnership in July, though specific financial terms were not revealed.

American Regulatory Challenges and Geopolitical Friction

These commercial discussions unfold against a backdrop of escalating political tensions. Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated potential plans to designate Moonshot for inclusion on a trade restriction list.

White House science advisor Michael Kratsios has charged Moonshot with creating Kimi K3 via “industrial distillation” techniques applied to Anthropic’s Fable model. American authorities have additionally accused the firm of unlawfully obtaining Nvidia processing chips.

Moonshot firmly disputes the distillation accusations, asserting that performance improvements resulted from proprietary architectural innovations.

The company maintains a computational partnership with Alibaba providing access to approximately 20,000 Nvidia chips. Reports also suggest Moonshot has explored procurement of Nvidia Blackwell GPUs for upcoming model development.

Capital Raising and Public Offering Strategy

Established in 2023 by Carnegie Mellon-educated researcher Yang Zhilin, Moonshot counts Alibaba and additional Chinese technology corporations among its financial backers.

Last month, the company successfully completed a financing round at a $35 billion valuation, securing $3.5 billion in capital, surpassing its original fundraising goal of $1 to $2 billion.

Reports indicate Moonshot currently pursues an additional funding round targeting a $50 billion valuation in preparation for an anticipated initial public offering on the Hong Kong stock exchange, potentially occurring before 2026 concludes.