🇨🇳 The AI Race Just Got More Interesting

👑

🔥

Two Chinese AI companies released frontier models last week that they say can compete with the best from OpenAI and Anthropic. And they're giving them away for free.

Moonshot launched Kimi K3 ... a massive model with 2.8 trillion parameters. They say it only trails OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and Anthropic's Claude Fable 5. Alibaba followed with Qwen3.8 Max at 2.4 trillion parameters, claiming it's second only to Claude Fable 5.

Here's what makes this different from the usual AI announcements.

Both companies are making these models fully open-source. That means any developer in the world can download them, modify them, and build new tools on top of them. While the big US labs mostly keep their best models locked behind paid subscriptions, China is betting on giving theirs away.

Demand for Kimi K3 was so high that Moonshot had to temporarily stop accepting new users ... they literally ran out of computing capacity.

A few things that stood out to me:

The gap between the best open-source and closed-source models is getting smaller
More competition means better AI tools at lower prices for everyone
Open-source models give smaller companies and developers access to capabilities that used to be locked behind expensive APIs

America still has big advantages in chips and investment. But the lead is narrower than most people realise.

Do you think open-source AI will win out over closed models in the end? Or will the big US labs stay ahead? 👇

13 comments

🇨🇳 The AI Race Just Got More Interesting

AI Community

skool.com/theaicommunity

Join 3,300+ accountants & bookkeepers learning AI together — ChatGPT, Claude, Excel and more - free. And the $7 privacy course keeps client data safe.

Leaderboard (30-day)

+20

+14

+11