The Chinese artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI is in negotiations with Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet's Google to establish revenue-sharing agreements, according to three people familiar with the matter. The proposed deals would allow the Kimi K3 model to be hosted on the U.S. cloud platforms Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. If finalized, the pacts would represent the first major revenue-sharing agreements between a Chinese AI developer and leading U.S. cloud infrastructure providers.
Moonshot was founded in 2023 by Yang Zhilin and is backed by Chinese tech companies including Alibaba. The startup recently raised more than $2 billion in May and is reportedly preparing for a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange. While Kimi K3 is an open-weight model that can be modified by users, the high computing costs required to run its 2.8 trillion parameters mean that most enterprise customers must rely on major cloud providers for adoption.
According to sources, Moonshot is seeking up to a 30% share of the revenue generated from K3-related services on these U.S. platforms. These terms align with figures the startup has previously outlined for other major customers. However, negotiations remain at an early stage with no guarantee of a final agreement. Unresolved issues reportedly include specific revenue-split percentages, data access protocols, and methods for auditing token usage, which are the units of text processed by AI models to determine billing.
The talks occur as U.S. officials raise concerns regarding Moonshot's operations. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated last month that he may add the company to a trade blacklist. Additionally, U.S. officials have accused Moonshot of stealing architecture from Anthropic's "Fable" model and illegally obtaining Nvidia chips. Moonshot has denied these claims, stating to China’s National Business Daily that its performance gains resulted from original changes to its underlying architecture.
The scale of the deal is significant for Moonshot, which is seeking up to 30% of revenue generated from its model on these platforms. For perspective, a 30% revenue share on cloud services could represent millions of dollars in monthly transfers between U.S. providers and the Chinese startup, depending on adoption rates. If the U.S. cloud giants agree to these terms, it would set a precedent for how foreign AI models are commercialized within the U.S. despite ongoing geopolitical tensions and export restrictions on AI hardware.
However, the outcome remains uncertain due to potential federal intervention. If Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent follows through on placing Moonshot on a trade blacklist, any existing or pending agreements could be halted, affecting the availability of these tools for U.S. software developers. A blacklist would likely prevent U.S. firms from facilitating revenue-generating activities for the startup. There is currently no confirmed date for a decision on the trade blacklist or the conclusion of the revenue-sharing talks, though Moonshot continues to pursue a potential Hong Kong initial public offering.