Moonshot’s upcoming Kimi 3 is expected to close the gap with Anthropic’s Opus 4.8

Financial Times reports that Moonshot AI’s upcoming Kimi K3 model is expected to match or exceed the performance of Anthropic‘s Opus 4.8. This Chinese firm states the new release will be the largest open-weight model from the region, containing between two and three trillion parameters. Industry sources suggest the system will launch within the coming days. Moonshot is also raising fresh capital to reach a valuation of $31.5 billion, following a previous round in May that valued the company at $20 billion. The announcement arrives as a debate intensifies regarding the value of paying for closed-source tools from labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. Executives warn that proprietary systems may extract client data submitted during use. Consequently, many leaders are now recommending cheaper open models from developers such as DeepSeek or Z.ai for internal training purposes. The argument gains strength as Chinese alternatives close the gap with expensive frontier counterparts.
* Kimi K3 parameters estimated between 2 trillion and 3 trillion
* Moonshot valuation targets $31.5 billion in new funding round
* Industry concern focuses on data extraction by closed-source providers