Kimi K3 pauses sign-ups as demand strains capacity

Moonshot AI has temporarily suspended new subscriptions for Kimi K3 after demand overwhelmed its available capacity within days of the model’s public rollout. The Beijing-based startup said demand over the past 48 hours had pushed close to the limits of current capacity, so it is prioritizing existing subscribers while adding capacity and reopening new spots in batches.

Kimi K3 is positioned as a challenger to advanced models from Anthropic, OpenAI and others. At 2.8 trillion parameters, it is described as the world’s largest open-source AI model, and it topped major advanced AI models in front-end coding rankings on Arena after release. Omdia analyst Lian Jye Su said new releases often strain compute infrastructure and that Moonshot likely underestimated demand for a model with very demanding compute requirements.

The launch adds to mounting attention around Chinese open-source, lower-cost systems, following DeepSeek’s latest V4 and other models that have drawn global interest. K3’s release has pressured U.S. tech stocks amid concerns that cheaper Chinese models could weaken the pricing power and demand for U.S. AI companies, despite restrictions limiting China’s access to some advanced technologies and chips.