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Moonshot Releases Kimi K3, the Largest Open-Weight AI Model Yet, Intensifying US-China Rivalry

July 20, 2026 at 07:16 EDT

Foundation Models
Open Source
Software Dev & Coding

Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI has released Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter model it bills as the world's largest openly available system, reigniting debate in the United States over how quickly Chinese developers are closing the gap with leading American labs.

July 17, 2026 · Moonshot AI

Kimi K3: the world's largest openly available AI model

Beijing's Moonshot AI unveils a 2.8-trillion-parameter, natively multimodal system with a 1M-token context window — the first open-weight model in the ~3-trillion class, reigniting the US-China race to the frontier.

2.8T

Parameters — largest downloadable model

Token context window

1,679

Elo — #1 on Frontend Code Arena

48h

Until signups paused as demand overwhelmed GPUs

Scaling efficiency vs K2

A Stable LatentMoE layer activates just 16 of 896 experts per token.

1×

Kimi K2

2.5×

Kimi K3

API pricing — flat pay-as-you-go, per 1M tokens

$0.30

Cached input

Input (cache miss)

$15

Output

No context-length tiering · full open weights ship July 27, 2026.

Praise

Strong agentic & frontend coding with vision-in-the-loop
Blunt, non-sycophantic tone
Demos: in-browser macOS, chip design, ~2h astrophysics pipeline

Caution

Overall still trails top proprietary models
Product experience lags Claude Fable 5 & GPT-5.6 Sol
Full verdict awaits open-weight, at-scale evaluation

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