Moonshot AI in Revenue-Sharing Talks with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google for K3, Seeking Up to 30% of Revenue
Nashnova编辑部
Moonshot AI is negotiating with Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud for a revenue-share deal on its flagship model Kimi K3, seeking up to 30% of K3-generated service revenue — a deal that, if signed, would be the first major rev-share agreement between a Chinese AI company and US cloud giants.
What exactly is on the table?
Moonshot AI wants all three US cloud platforms to host its flagship model Kimi K3 and pay it up to 30% of the service revenue K3 generates.
This means → not a one-off license sale, but a usage-based, ongoing cut — the more K3 gets used, the more Moonshot earns.
Talks are at an early stage. All three cloud providers declined to comment; Moonshot did not respond. Whether a deal gets signed remains unclear.
Where are the sticking points?
Sources cite three unresolved issues: how to split revenue, how much data access to grant, and how to audit token usage.
In plain terms = a token — the smallest billing unit for AI text processing — is the measuring stick for money. Both sides need to agree on how to measure before they can agree on how to split.
Moonshot has signed similar deals with smaller platforms. In July, China IT services firm Chinasoft International (HKEX: 0354) disclosed a rev-share arrangement but did not reveal the percentage.
Is K3 good enough to justify the ask?
K3 is an open-weight model with 2.8 trillion parameters. Arena.ai ranks it first for web-interface building capability.
Artificial Analysis rates its performance on par with OpenAI's GPT-5.5 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8, particularly on complex multi-step tasks.
This reflects something important: K3 is not "just another Chinese LLM" — third-party benchmarks now place it in the same tier as America's leading models.
How serious is the US regulatory threat?
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month that Moonshot could be placed on a trade blacklist.
US officials also allege Moonshot used distillation — training one model on another model's outputs — from Anthropic's flagship model Fable to help build K3, and illegally obtained Nvidia chips.
Moonshot denies all allegations, saying K3's gains come from original architectural improvements. This means → whether the deal moves forward depends not just on commercial terms, but on whether Washington decides to block it outright.
Who is Moonshot AI?
Founded in 2023 by Yang Zhilin, a Carnegie Mellon–trained AI researcher. Backers include Alibaba and other Chinese tech giants.
The company closed a $2 billion+ funding round in May and is preparing for a Hong Kong IPO.
In plain terms = Moonshot is running three tracks at once — fundraising, an IPO, and a rev-share negotiation with US cloud giants. A setback on any one track ripples into the other two.
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