The dark side of the moon has officially kicked off a new round of "open source battle" for China's large models. Recently, the company released the new generation open-source foundational model Kimi K3, with a parameter scale of 2.8 trillion, becoming the world's first open-source model close to 3 trillion yuan, and simultaneously launched API services and developer documentation.
Morgan Stanley's latest report points out that the Kimi K3 performs exceptionally well: it ranks third in Artificial Analysis's Global Intelligence Index, just behind two top American large models; On the Arena.ai programming leaderboard, it even claimed the top spot globally.
It is worth noting that the API pricing of the Kimi K3 is currently the highest among mainstream domestic large models. This move further narrows the price gap with leading American products, has positive implications for the overall large model market pricing landscape, and marks a shift from a simple "price war" to a "value war" for domestic large models.
|Kimi K3 Technology Revealed: Hardcore Architecture and World-Class Performance
Major architecture upgrade: smarter, more efficient
The Kimi K3 adopts a brand-new technical architecture (KDA hybrid linear attention mechanism and attention residual technology), which natively supports "image viewing" (visual understanding) and can process ultra-long texts up to 1 million characters in one go.
It uses a very clever "Hybrid Expert (MoE)" architecture: the model has 896 built-in "experts," but each time a task is processed, only the most relevant 16 are precisely awakened. This mechanism, combined with optimized training data, results in an overall efficiency improvement of about 2.5 times compared to the previous generation (K2). Simply put, it means working faster and saving more resources.
Its strength firmly ranks among the world's top tier
The Kimi K3 is specifically designed for hardcore scenarios such as coding, research, and handling complex knowledge. In various authoritative evaluations, its overall intelligence level consistently ranks among the top three globally, second only to the two top US closed-source models (Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol).
In actual combat tests, the Kimi K3 has achieved multiple "world firsts":
Frontend coding capability: Ranked first in the Arena.AI frontend coding arena with 1679 points, surpassing two top American models.
High-difficulty search: Ranked first on the long-cycle high-difficulty search benchmark BrowseComp with a score of 91.2.
Private Agent Task: Ranked second in Artificial Analysis's AA-Briefcase benchmark, surpassing GPT-5.6 Sol.
The official team at Moon Dark Side has been very candid, saying that although the Kimi K3 performs very well overall, it still falls short of the most powerful closed-source models currently available, and there is room for improvement.
However, the best news for developers is that the full model weighting for Kimi K3 will be fully released to the open-source community by July 27, 2026. Currently, the API service is live (compatible with the OpenAI SDK), priced at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per output. If cached hits, input costs can be as low as $0.3.
｜半年估值暴涨700%！月之暗面凭什么这么吸金？
随着智谱、MiniMax相继上市，DeepSeek估值突破500亿美元，国产大模型赛道正迎来估值狂飙。其中，月之暗面的融资节奏更是堪称“坐火箭”。
融资“连轴转”，估值半年翻7倍：
2025年底：完成5亿美元C轮融资，估值43亿美元。
2026年初：1月和2月密集完成三轮融资（共19亿美元），估值飙升至180亿美元。
May 2026: Meituan Longzhu led a $2 billion Series D financing round, attracting "national teams" like China Mobile and SDIC, with a valuation reaching $20 billion.
End of June 2026: A new round of financing will be launched, with pre-investment valuations rising to $31.5 billion.
In just over half a year, the valuation of Dark Side of the Moon has increased by more than 700%.
Earning ability explodes: income triples in half a year
The confidence behind the soaring valuation comes from its impressive commercialization data. As of mid-June 2026, Dark Side of the Moon's annual recurring revenue (ARR) has officially surpassed the $300 million mark.
Overseas Boom: Kimi's paid users and API revenue in overseas markets both soared by 400%, and its products have successfully entered more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. B-end Push: API revenue now accounts for over 70% of total revenue, indicating that enterprise-level clients are continuously paying for their technical capabilities.
| Major equity adjustment: state-owned capital enters, founders still maintain absolute control
Along with the acceleration of financing, the equity structure of domestic companies in the Moonlit Dark Side has also undergone significant adjustments. According to the business registration information on July 9, the company added 9 institutional shareholders, increasing its registered capital to 1.5236 million yuan.
Among the newly added shareholders, state-owned assets stand out in particular:
National teams such as the Social Security Fund: Shenzhen Harmony Growth Phase III Fund holds 11.76%, with the largest investor being the National Social Security Fund Council (about 29%), as well as China Mobile and Pacific Life. In addition, the Social Security Fund and the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Fund also invested simultaneously.
Industrial capital entered through the channel: A-share listed company Canadian Solar indirectly held a 1.44% stake through a new energy fund; Ningxia Baofeng Group also became an indirect shareholder through the Huayue Chuangzhi Fund.
With the addition of these institutional shareholders, the shareholding of founder Yang Zhilin and other existing shareholders was diluted from 100% to 65.63%. Among them, Yang Zhilin currently holds 51.83% of the shares, still maintaining absolute control over the company.
It's not "new money," but "confirmation of rights": This time the social security fund and other institutions are not the latest round of investment, but rather a historical equity project completed by the dark side of the moon in 2025. This time, it is just a delayed change in business registration and ownership.
Jingtai Perspective | Domestic large models bid farewell to the "price war" and enter a new cycle of "value monetization."
Kimi K3 adopts the highest domestic API pricing and continues to achieve explosive growth in overseas paying users and API revenue, marking that domestic large models now have the capability to achieve high premiums through hardcore technologies (such as long context and coding capabilities). The logic of industry competition has completely shifted from the early "burning money for traffic" to "technical barriers + high-value B-end monetization."
Focus on exploring AI applications and developer ecosystems along "high-value scenarios."
Kimi K3 topped hardcore scenarios such as front-end coding and high-difficulty retrieval, with API revenue accounting for over 70%.
It is recommended that investors focus on two types of targets: first, AI application service providers with strong B-end ecosystem integration capabilities, able to seamlessly embed large model capabilities into enterprise-level SaaS, industrial manufacturing, or financial terminals;
Second, the "water sellers" benefiting from the surge in large model API calls, including AI data service providers, API gateways, and edge computing node providers.
Focus on the resonance between "state-owned capital endorsement" and "overseas logic."
The dark side of the moon has gained deep ties with the social security fund and other "national teams," with overseas income soaring 400%. In the current macro environment, "state-owned capital endorsement + global expansion" is the most certain safety cushion for the AI sector. It is recommended to focus on AI infrastructure companies that have performed well in overseas business and have a background in state-owned cooperation in underlying computing power or data compliance.
