https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/business/china-ai-moonshot-kimi.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

China’s Latest A.I. Breakthrough Threatens America’s Lead

中国最新的 AI 突破威胁着美国的领先地位

China’s Moonshot AI unveiled a freely available artificial intelligence model that seemed to narrow the gap with cutting-edge offerings from U.S. tech companies.

中国的 Moonshot AI 发布了一款免费可用的人工智能模型，似乎缩小了与美国科技公司尖端产品之间的差距。

The Moonshot AI booth at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on Friday in Shanghai. The company’s Kimi K3 model performed as well at some tasks as the leading models from U.S. firms.Credit…Go Nakamura/Reuters

By Meaghan Tobin and Cade Metz

作者：梅根·托宾和凯德·梅茨

Meaghan Tobin reported from New York and Cade Metz from San Francisco.

梅根·托宾自纽约报道，凯德·梅茨自旧金山报道。

July 17, 2026Updated 4:04 p.m. ET

The contest between China and the United States for supremacy in artificial intelligence escalated on Friday when the Chinese start-up Moonshot AI released a new A.I. model that appeared to narrow the lead held by well-funded American competitors.

中美两国在人工智能领域的霸主之争于上周五升级，中国初创企业 Moonshot AI 发布了一款新的人工智能模型，似乎缩小了资金雄厚的美国竞争对手所保持的领先优势。

Moonshot said that the model, Kimi K3, was the world’s largest open-source A.I. system, allowing anyone to use, modify and build on it freely. The company said that Kimi K3 performed as well as leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic at some key tasks.

Moonshot 表示，该模型 Kimi K3 是全球最大的开源人工智能系统，允许任何人自由使用、修改和在此基础上进行开发。该公司称，Kimi K3 在某些关键任务上的表现与 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的领先模型相当。

The release coincided with an address by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, in which he outlined an ambitious vision for global A.I. development that cast China as the champion of an open approach to the technology.

此次发布正值中国国家主席习近平发表讲话之际，他在讲话中阐述了全球人工智能发展的宏伟愿景，将中国塑造为开放技术路线的倡导者。

“A.I. development should not be a solo performance by a single country but a symphony of international cooperation,” Mr. Xi said. China was “ready to work with all parties to seize the opportunities of A.I. development,” he said.

“人工智能发展不应是某个国家的独奏，而是国际合作的交响乐，”习近平说。中国“愿意与各方合作，抓住人工智能发展的机遇”，他表示。

The market reaction was immediate. Stocks fell on Friday, with the Nasdaq dropping about 1 percent as investors sold shares of U.S. companies that make the computer chips needed to power A.I., including Nvidia and Intel.

市场的反应立竿见影。周五股市下跌，纳斯达克指数下跌约 1%，投资者抛售了为人工智能提供动力的计算机芯片制造商的股票，包括英伟达和英特尔。

The developments underscored the geopolitical stakes of the U.S.-China contest for leadership in what many see as the defining technological race of our time. President Trump has repeatedly framed maintaining America’s lead in artificial intelligence as a strategic imperative for preserving the country’s economic and national security.

这些事态发展凸显了美中在许多人视为我们这个时代决定性的技术竞赛中争夺领导权的地缘政治赌注。特朗普总统多次将保持美国在人工智能领域的领先地位视为维护国家经济和国家安全的战略要务。

The emergence of A.I. as a foundational technology with far-reaching economic and military implications has pushed the United States to slow China’s progress by restricting its access to the advanced chips needed to train cutting-edge A.I. systems.

人工智能作为一种具有深远经济和军事影响的基础技术的出现，促使美国通过限制中国获取训练尖端人工智能系统所需的先进芯片来减缓其进展。

The release of a free, open-source Chinese A.I. model that could rival the performance of costly, computing-intensive systems from Silicon Valley’s best-funded companies has reignited concerns over whether the industry’s enormous spending spree on data centers is justified.

一个免费、开源的中国人工智能模型的发布，其性能可与硅谷资金最充裕的公司所开发的昂贵、计算密集型系统相媲美，重新引发了人们对行业在数据中心上的巨额支出是否合理的担忧。

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Yang Zhilin, a co-founder of Moonshot AI, in Beijing in March.Credit…Tingshu Wang/Reuters

Over the past 18 months, Chinese technology companies have released a steady stream of open-source A.I. models that approach the performance of their American rivals, while claiming to require fewer computing resources. That combination of strong performance and lower costs has made Chinese A.I. systems the preferred choice for many developers worldwide.

在过去的 18 个月里，中国科技公司发布了一系列开源人工智能模型，这些模型的性能接近美国竞争对手，同时声称需要更少的计算资源。这种强大的性能和较低成本的结合，使得中国的人工智能系统成为全球许多开发者的首选。

Moonshot’s latest release adds to that momentum and raises the prospect that a Chinese company could soon match — or even surpass — the cutting-edge models built by leading American A.I. firms, which have raised hundreds of billions of dollars to build models that are closed and expensive to operate.

月之暗面（Moonshot）的最新发布进一步推动了这一势头，并增加了中国公司可能很快就能赶上甚至超越美国领先人工智能公司所构建的尖端模型的前景，这些美国公司已筹集了数千亿美元来构建封闭且运营成本高昂的模型。

According to benchmarks run by Vals AI, an independent company that evaluates the performance of A.I. models, Kimi K3 performs just below Anthropic’s Fable 5 model while outperforming OpenAI’s flagship GPT-5.6 Sol model, said Rayan Krishnan, Vals AI’s chief executive.

根据独立评估人工智能模型性能的公司 Vals AI 进行的基准测试，Vals AI 首席执行官 Rayan Krishnan 表示，Kimi K3 的表现略低于 Anthropic 的 Fable 5 模型，但优于 OpenAI 的旗舰模型 GPT-5.6 Sol。

The latest A.I. models from Anthropic have become so powerful that their capabilities — including identifying vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure such as banking networks and power grids — have alarmed governments around the world.

Anthropic 的最新一代人工智能模型变得非常强大，其能力——包括识别银行网络和电网等关键基础设施的漏洞——已经引起了全球各国政府的警觉。

Graham Webster, a Stanford University professor who studies China’s open-source A.I. ecosystem, said it did not matter much whether a model was at the absolute cutting edge, because the performance gap between leading American and Chinese models had narrowed.

斯坦福大学教授、研究中国开源人工智能生态系统的 Graham Webster 表示，模型是否处于绝对前沿并不重要，因为美国领先模型与中国领先模型之间的性能差距已经缩小。

“Everyone has a different number about how many months China is behind the U.S., and the estimates cluster around six months,” he said. “That is not much of a lead.”

他说：“每个人对中国落后美国多少个月都有不同的数据，估计值集中在六个月左右。这算不上多大的领先优势。”

Moonshot said it would release the full details of Kimi K3 at the end of the month.

Moonshot 表示将于本月底公布 Kimi K3 的全部细节。

Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who attended Friday’s A.I. conference in Shanghai where Mr. Xi spoke, said that many experts believe it’s only a matter of time before a Chinese company releases a freely available model that matches Anthropic’s most advanced systems. Such a breakthrough, Ms. Sacks said, would raise difficult questions for regulators trying to contain powerful A.I. technology once it has been released.

约翰霍普金斯大学高级国际研究学院高级研究员萨姆·萨克斯出席了上周五在上海举行的人工智能会议，习近平先生在该会议上发表了讲话。萨克斯表示，许多专家认为，中国公司发布一款与 Anthropic 最先进系统相当且可免费获取的模型只是时间问题。萨克斯称，这样的突破将给那些试图在强大人工智能技术发布后加以控制的监管机构带来难题。

Last month, another Chinese start-up, Z.ai, released a model called GLM-5.2 that was nearly as powerful as Anthropic’s Fable 5 model, the leading American system. And unlike Fable, this Chinese model was widely available.

上个月，另一家中国初创公司 Z.ai 发布了一款名为 GLM-5.2 的模型，其性能几乎与领先的美国系统 Anthropic 的 Fable 5 模型相当。与 Fable 不同，这款中国模型能够被广泛获取。

Many software developers and start-ups in Silicon Valley quickly adopted the model, largely because it was much cheaper than the leading American systems. It arrived just as U.S. businesses realized they had to find ways to cut down their A.I. spending.

硅谷的许多软件开发商和初创公司迅速采用了该模型，主要是因为其成本远低于美国领先的系统。它的出现恰逢美国企业意识到必须找到削减人工智能支出的方法之时。

Kimi K3 is even more powerful than GLM-5.2, according to benchmarks run by Vals AI. The model arrives as the Trump administration is considering regulating the technology. Many Silicon Valley executives have begun to support such regulation, saying that leading technologies can enable malicious cyberattacks and potentially help build biological weapons.

根据 Vals AI 进行的基准测试，Kimi K3 甚至比 GLM-5.2 更强大。该模型发布之际，特朗普政府正在考虑对该技术进行监管。许多硅谷高管已开始支持此类监管，称领先技术可能助长恶意网络攻击，甚至可能帮助制造生物武器。

Moonshot’s A.I. has been widely adopted in China since the Beijing-based start-up was founded in 2023.

自 2023 年这家总部位于北京的初创公司成立以来，Moonshot 的人工智能在中国已被广泛采用。

Nearly all of China’s leading A.I. systems are open-source, helping them gain users around the world. But unlike the closed systems favored in Silicon Valley, the Chinese models have proved harder to profit from. The challenge of leveraging global adoption to create a profitable business is now fracturing some of China’s top A.I. research labs, including the internet giant Alibaba.

中国几乎所有领先的人工智能系统都是开源的，这帮助它们在全世界获得用户。但与硅谷青睐的封闭系统不同，事实证明中国模式更难盈利。利用全球采用来创建盈利业务的挑战，现在正在分裂一些中国顶尖的人工智能研究实验室，包括互联网巨头阿里巴巴。

Chinese A.I. researchers routinely cite shortages of computing power — caused by U.S. export controls — as the industry’s biggest constraint, and companies have spent heavily to secure scarce chips. Some companies, including MiniMax and Z.ai, have gone public to raise money from investors. Alibaba is increasingly steering customers toward models that require users to pay.

中国人工智能研究人员经常将计算能力短缺——由美国出口管制造成——视为该行业最大的限制，公司们花费巨资来获取稀缺的芯片。一些公司，包括 MiniMax 和 Z.ai，已经上市从投资者那里筹集资金。阿里巴巴正越来越多地将客户引导至需要付费的模型。

But the scale of fund-raising by Chinese A.I. firms pales in comparison to their U.S. rivals. In May, Moonshot raised $2 billion in a funding round backed by China Mobile, the state telecom company, and the investment arm of food delivery giant Meituan. By comparison, Anthropic raised $65 billion the same month.

但中国人工智能公司的融资规模与美国竞争对手相比相形见绌。5 月，Moonshot 在一轮融资中筹集了 20 亿美元，支持方包括国有电信公司中国移动和外卖巨头美团的投资部门。相比之下，Anthropic 在同月筹集了 650 亿美元。

Moonshot has instead focused on making the most of its limited computing resources. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, the company’s president, Yutong Zhang, said efficiency had been a necessity from the outset.

Moonshot 则专注于充分利用其有限的计算资源。该公司总裁张宇桐今年在达沃斯世界经济论坛上发表讲话时表示，效率从一开始就是必需的。

“We knew we didn’t have the luxury to just scale up compute,” she said.

她说：“我们知道，我们没有奢侈到可以仅仅扩大算力。”

Anthropic and OpenAI have accused Chinese companies of improperly harvesting data from their A.I. systems to accelerate the development of competing models. But experts say the recent advances by Moonshot and Z.ai cannot be explained by distillation alone. Years of operating under export controls have forced Chinese companies to innovate within tight computing constraints.

Anthropic 和 OpenAI 指责中国公司不当从其人工智能系统中收集数据，以加速开发竞争模型。但专家表示，Moonshot 和 Z.ai 最近的进展不能仅仅用蒸馏来解释。多年在出口管制下运营，迫使中国公司在严格的计算限制内进行创新。

“The Chinese models are not excellent only because of distillation, ” said Mr. Webster of Stanford. “There is real innovation going on.”

“中国的模型之所以出色，不仅仅是因为蒸馏，”斯坦福大学的韦伯斯特先生说。“真正的创新正在发生。”