Moonshot AI Negotiates Revenue-Sharing Deals with Microsoft, Amazon, Google

China's Moonshot AI is in negotiations with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to host its blockbuster Kimi K3 model on their cloud platforms. The talks aim to establish revenue-sharing agreements that would allow the US cloud giants to benefit from hosting Kimi K3, a highly performing AI model developed by Moonshot.

According to sources, Moonshot is seeking up to 30% of revenue generated from K3-related services hosted on Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. This would be in line with terms outlined for major customers using the open-weight model.

The discussions highlight how China's leading AI models are gaining traction in the US, despite national security concerns that have led to bans on exports of AI chips to China. Moonshot has faced criticism from senior US officials, including US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who suggested adding it to a trade blacklist. However, Moonshot has rejected allegations that Kimi K3's performance was achieved through distillation.

The unresolved issues in the talks include revenue splitting, data access, and auditing token usage. Tokens are units of text processed by AI models, and measuring their use is central to calculating revenue under usage-based billing.