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If you've spent any time reading AI news over the past week, you've probably seen people talking about Kimi K3.Developers are calling it one of the biggest AI releases of the year. Some believe it marks China's next major "DeepSeek moment," while others say it's the first open-weight model to seriously challenge flagship versions of ChatGPT and Claude for coding and agentic tasks.So what exactly is Kimi K3, who built it, and is it worth trying? Here's everything you need to know.What is Kimi K3?Kimi K3 is the newest flagship AI model from Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI. It is a massive 2.8-trillion parameter model designed to handle everything from everyday conversations to complex coding projects, deep research and autonomous AI agents.Unlike ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, which keep their model architecture strictly proprietary, Kimi K3 is available as an open-weight model. That means developers can download the model weights directly and run it on their own hardware or cloud servers rather than relying on an external API.Who makes Kimi?Kimi is developed by Moonshot AI, a Chinese startup founded in 2023 by former Tsinghua University researchers.The company first gained international attention when its early chatbots handled dramatically longer context windows than competitors. Since then, Moonshot has become one of the country's prominent AI firms alongside competitors like DeepSeek, MiniMax and Z.ai.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.Why is Kimi K3 making headlines?
