China's Kimi jolts the AI race with cheaper, open-weight breakthrough

China’s Moonshot AI released Kimi, a large open-weight model that performs near the frontier, beats top U.S. rivals on tests and costs about 40% less, with the ability to run in-house. The launch sharpens competition, challenges pricing power of U.S. labs, and raises questions for U.S. policy and regulation as the gap to the frontier narrows.