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Moonshot Releases Kimi K3, a 2.8-Trillion-Parameter Open-Weight Model Rivaling Top US Systems

July 17, 2026 at 05:46 EDT

Foundation Models
Open Source

Chinese startup Moonshot AI on July 17, 2026 unveiled Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight multimodal model that the company and independent benchmarks say performs on par with top-tier systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. The launch marks one of the most direct challenges yet to the US lead in frontier artificial intelligence, and Moonshot is positioning K3 as the world's largest openly released AI system.

July 17, 2026 · Moonshot AI

China's Moonshot Unveils Kimi K3 — The World's Largest Open AI Model

A 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight multimodal model that benchmarks say performs on par with top-tier systems from OpenAI and Anthropic — one of the most direct challenges yet to the US lead in frontier AI.

2.8T

parameters — the largest openly released model

token context window

overall on Vals AI — ranked #1 on web-building

Where K3 lands on the leaderboard

Overall standing on Vals AI — trailing Claude Fable 5, ahead of GPT-5.6 Sol

Claude
Fable 5

Kimi K3
(Moonshot)

GPT-5.6
Sol

On GPU kernel optimization K3 is competitive with Fable 5 and substantially ahead of Opus 4.8, GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.5.

The road to open weights

JULY 17

API available now

Immediate access via Moonshot's API

→

JULY 27

Full weights released

Open to the broader community for scrutiny

Developer enthusiasm

Praised as best-in-class open model — rivaling or exceeding Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 on coding, agentic tasks and web construction. Some call it a second "DeepSeek-style shock."

Practical constraints

Running K3 locally could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware — making API access the realistic path. Independent scrutiny of the full weights is still to come.

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