Moonshot AI, backed by Alibaba, has unveiled Kimi K3, a model with 2.8 trillion parameters that surpasses GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8 in programming. The company will release the full weights before July 27.
China has once again shaken up the global artificial intelligence landscape. Moonshot AI, a startup backed by Alibaba, presented on Wednesday Kimi K3, a model with 2.8 trillion parameters that becomes the largest open weights system ever launched. This figure nearly doubles the 1.6 trillion of DeepSeek V4-Pro, which was previously the benchmark in the category.
Performance that surpasses Western giants
According to data published by Moonshot AI, Kimi K3 outperforms OpenAI's GPT-5.5 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 in most programming tests and intelligent agent tasks. Only the most advanced models on the market, Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol, maintain an advantage, although the company acknowledges that there is still a gap in user experience.
The model is capable of processing text and images natively and handling a context of up to one million tokens, one of the broadest capabilities in the industry. This allows for the analysis of lengthy documents, long conversations, or complete codebases without losing track.
Free release of weights before July 27
The announcement that has most impacted the sector is that Moonshot will release the full weights of the model for free before July 27. Companies, researchers, and developers around the world will be able to download, modify, and run it on their own servers without paying for licenses. This openness contrasts with the strategy of OpenAI or Anthropic, which keep their most powerful models under subscription or restricted access.
For Spanish tech companies, this release represents an opportunity. SMEs and startups will be able to integrate a high-performance model without relying on US providers or incurring licensing costs. However, the requirement of at least 64 AI accelerators to run it implies an investment in infrastructure that is not within everyone's reach.
Impact on the chip market and global competition
Industry analysts warn that the enormous size of Kimi K3 will drive demand for high-performance chips. Nvidia, whose GPUs dominate the AI accelerator market, could see a new boost in sales. But it also opens the door to Chinese alternatives like Huawei with its Ascend processors, which seek to circumvent the export restrictions imposed by the United States.
The Chinese offensive puts pressure back on OpenAI, Anthropic, and other Western giants. Competition intensifies week by week, and each new release narrows the gaps. For the investor ecosystem, this means that the valuations of AI companies must be constantly reassessed, and that technological advantage can be fleeting.
Moonshot AI, founded in 2023 by entrepreneur Yang Zhilin, has managed to position itself as a relevant player in less than two years. Its backing by Alibaba has provided the necessary resources to scale. The release of Kimi K3 is a strategic move to gain developer share and attract talent to its ecosystem.
For the end user, the news has a practical angle: open models like Kimi K3 accelerate innovation in AI applications, from virtual assistants to data analysis tools. Companies that adopt this technology early will be able to gain competitive advantages in productivity and customisation.
The deadline of July 27 marks a key date. From then on, any organization with the appropriate infrastructure will be able to download and experiment with one of the most powerful models in the world. The question is how long it will take competitors to respond with a new quantum leap.
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