# Moonshot AI Launches Kimi K3, a 2.8-Trillion-Parameter Open Model Rivaling Claude Opus 4.8

*2026-07-18 02:01 UTC · AI · 1 min read*

> Moonshot's new Kimi K3 is the largest open-weight AI model yet released, matching Claude Opus 4.8-level performance at a fraction of the price.

Chinese AI lab Moonshot released Kimi K3 on July 16, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight multimodal reasoning model — the largest open-weight model shipped to date. Two variants launched first inside the Kimi app and Kimi Code: K3 Max for chat and agent tasks, and K3 Swarm Max for large-scale parallel processing.

The model ships with a 1-million-token context window, an always-on "thinking mode," and aggressive pricing at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. On independent benchmarks it lands fourth among all frontier models, trailing only Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol while edging past Claude Opus 4.8. Full open weights are due by July 27.

The release lands as Moonshot raises new funding at a $31.5 billion valuation, up from $20 billion in May, and marks the latest sign that Chinese labs are closing the gap with US frontier AI amid a broader industry push toward open-weight alternatives.

## Sources

- [bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-17/china-s-powerful-new-moonshot-ai-model-closes-gap-with-us-rivals)
- [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/16/moonshots-upcoming-kimi-3-is-expected-to-close-the-gap-with-anthropics-opus-4-8/)

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TechTools News · https://techtools.cz/tools/news/article/2025-moonshot-ai-launches-kimi-k3-a-2-8-trillion-parameter-open-model-rivaling
Česká verze: https://techtools.cz/tools/news/clanek/2098-moonshot-ai-spustil-kimi-k3-otevreny-model-se-2-8-bilionu-parametru-konkurujici