Can I create an Azure VM from Ansible with NICs in different resource groups?
From close reading of the Ansible doc page on creating Azure VMs, it's clear that you can refer to a resource such as a virtual network or NIC using its resource ID.  This lets you specify any resource, just like RM templates.

To specify a NIC created in another resource group by the networking team, with the networking_rg_name var set to that group name, you would use a resource ID like this:

- set_fact:
    nic_id: "/subscriptions/{{ subscription_id }}/resourceGroups/{{ networking_rg_name }}/providers/Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/{{ nic_name }}"

- name: "Create VM {{vm_type}} - {{name}}"
  azure_rm_virtualmachine:
    resource_group: "{{rg_name}}"
    name: "{{name}}"
    vm_size: "{{size}}"
    admin_username: "{{user}}"
    admin_password: "{{pass}}"
    os_type: "{{os_type}}"
    network_interfaces: "{{nic_id}}"     # Use the nic_id instead of name
    image: "{{image}}"
    tags: "{{tags}}"


This works for any resources that are in a different resource group, including virtual networks.