Beijing-based artificial-intelligence lab founded by an alumnus of Google and Meta. In July 2025 the company released Kimi K2, an open-source model with more parameters than any open-source equivalent. Kimi K2 outperformed ChatGPT 4.1 on tests of coding ability and Claude 4 Opus on tests of science knowledge, rising straight to the top of global leaderboards.
Like DeepSeek, Moonshot makes its models available through third-party hosting services such as Hugging Face, based in New York. This strategy helps ensure its models remain accessible even when the company lacks the computing power to serve customers directly.
In February 2026 Anthropic accused Moonshot of being among three Chinese AI firms that had secretly attempted to distil its models, creating fraudulent accounts and engaging with them millions of times. Moonshot did not respond publicly.
The company has struggled with the inference side of its business. Days after Kimi K2's launch, Moonshot posted on X: "We've heard your feedback—Kimi K2 is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW." The slowdown reflected a broader constraint on China's AI industry: shortages of the Nvidia chips needed to run trained models at scale.
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