Kimi K3, a new artificial intelligence program from a Chinese startup called Moonshot AI, stunned the US tech industry on Friday, setting off fresh discussion over the China-US rivalry to dominate AI. The program was released Thursday and within hours hit the top spot on a widely watched ranking of AI coding tools called Arena, marking the first time a Chinese model had claimed the number one position on the list.

Moonshot's Kimi K3 beat Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 in some benchmarks... and it's an open model.

Kimi K3's early performance is fueling alarm in Silicon Valley and Washington.

Kimi's K3 model has caught up to the American frontier.

Moonshot AI's latest model is impressing developers with its coding skills, low API costs, and open-weight strategy.

Kimi K3 beats latest offerings by US rivals on some benchmarks

With the release of its latest model, Moonshot AI is quickly catching up to U.S. firms Anthropic and OpenAI.

By Christine Ji and Hannah Pedone