Chinese startup Moonshot AI made a rapid leap forward in the artificial intelligence race against U.S. companies with the preliminary release of its new model Thursday.

Kimi K3 already rivals the models of leading AI firms based in the United States, such as Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol. Moonshot AI is closely behind the two U.S. competitors, with its chatbot falling behind Claude Fable and the latest version of ChatGPT in overall performance. But when it comes to front-end coding tests, Kimi K3 is in the top spot, according to a ranking by Arena AI.