Moonshot AI Launches 2.8 Trillion-Parameter Kimi K3, Musk Says 'Impressive'

Moonshot AI launched the Kimi K3 model in July, with 2.8 trillion parameters. It scored 1679 on the Frontend Code Arena global AI leaderboard, beating Claude Fable 5 to take first place. Elon Musk commented 'Impressive' on the benchmark post.

Rumors said K3 is a distilled small model, but Moonshot's business head Huang Zhenxin denied it, saying K3's performance boost comes from original architecture innovation, not distillation. He added that open-source and Chinese AI models shouldn't be labeled as cheap, and K3 as a state-of-the-art model deserves fair pricing.

User demand for K3 has far exceeded expectations, causing resource strain across platforms and limiting new sign-ups. The team is prioritizing paid users and won't fully open registration yet, working on model optimization and computing power. Musk earlier claimed his 2 trillion-parameter model could beat Kimi, and Moonshot responded on Weibo: 'Welcome to the 2 trillion+ club.'