Moonshot AI Launches Kimi K3 With 2.8 Trillion Parameters Last Thursday, Halts Registrations Due to Surging Demand

According to multiple analysts from BluBird Capital, Wedbush, and D.A. Davidson, Moonshot AI launched the open-weight model Kimi K3 last Thursday with 2.8 trillion parameters, surpassing some Western models including OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 in certain benchmarks. Due to surging demand, the company halted new user registrations over the weekend to prioritize existing users' computing resources.

The cheaper model, priced at $15 per million tokens compared to OpenAI's $30 and Anthropic's $50, has sparked analyst debate on its implications for U.S. chipmakers. While some initially viewed it as a bearish signal for companies like NVIDIA and Micron, analysts now argue the lower-cost model could actually benefit memory and semiconductor suppliers by driving overall AI demand growth and intensifying infrastructure bottlenecks.