Moonshot AI Pauses Kimi Subscriptions Amid IPO Plans

Chinese artificial-intelligence startup Moonshot AI has halted new user subscriptions for its recently launched Kimi K3 foundation model due to a surge in demand that overwhelmed its computing capacity. The company is also reportedly pursuing a Hong Kong initial public offering within the next six months, aiming to raise up to $2 billion, with Goldman Sachs and CICC advising on the potential deal.

Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 model, described as the largest open-weight AI system globally, has quickly gained traction, topping Arena's frontend coding leaderboard and ranking highly on other benchmarks, signaling China's progress in closing the gap with leading US AI systems. Despite its performance, Moonshot AI acknowledges that K3 still trails top proprietary models like Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol.

The startup, backed by Alibaba and Tencent, is valued at approximately $31.5 billion and has reached $300 million in annual recurring revenue.