China's AI 'Kimi K3' Strikes Back... Intelligence Benchmark Ranks 4th Among Existing AI Models

[Financial News, New York = Reporter Lee Byung-chul] Kimi K3, the latest AI model from Chinese artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI, is shaking up the AI competitive landscape as it challenges the dominance of U.S. AI companies. As the model's performance, which rivals top-tier U.S. AI systems, rattled Wall Street, major foreign media outlets began focusing on the possibility of a 'second DeepSeek.'
The new AI model Kimi K3, unveiled on the 17th, is the world's first open-source model with 300 billion parameters. It was designed for advanced intelligence scenarios such as long-horizon coding, intellectual tasks, and reasoning. Moonshot said Kimi K3 is aimed at long-term work rather than simple question-and-answer exchanges, including processing large software repositories, operating terminal tools, and combining coding with visual feedback. It also explained that the model can modify digital content such as interfaces and games through image and video understanding capabilities.
Morgan Stanley said the development showed that Chinese large language models are catching up with leading U.S. companies in scale, performance, and price. The Wall Street Journal also interpreted it on the 18th as a sign of change in the AI industry structure. It described Kimi K3 as one of the world's largest open-weight AI models, with about 280 billion parameters, and said the U.S. technological lead is narrowing rapidly. Open-weight refers to a method in which the core weights of a trained AI model are made public so that anyone can download and use them.
Artificial Analysis, an AI performance analytics firm, said Kimi K3 scored 57 on its intelligence benchmark, ranking fourth among existing AI models. That puts it just behind Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 at 60, OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol Max at 59, and GPT-5.6 Sol X-High at 58. It is ahead of SpaceXAI's Grok 4.5 at 54, Meta Platforms' MuseSpark 1.1 at 51, and Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash at 50.
Analysts also said the release of Kimi K3 could worsen short-term investor sentiment and intensify AI competition. Foreign media outlets said whether big tech companies such as Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Amazon.com, Inc. keep their AI investment plans will be a key factor in determining whether this shock becomes only a temporary correction. After Kimi's release, AI chip stocks including NVIDIA, Broadcom Inc., and AMD fell across the board, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) dropped more than 20% from its recent peak, entering a technical bear market. Market concerns have resurfaced that the AI investment boom may have gone too far. It was also noted that the cost of developing high-performance AI models is falling rapidly. The pace of AI infrastructure investment could slow, which may weigh on NVIDIA and memory chip makers. The Financial Times and others also said that despite U.S. semiconductor export controls, Chinese AI companies are quickly narrowing the technology gap through open-source strategies.
pride@fnnews.com Reporter