Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3.1 Pro model to challenge US rivals

Moonshot AI announced the launch of its new artificial intelligence model, Kimi K3.1 Pro, on October 23, 2026. The Information, Unite.AI, The Decoder, Kingy AI, and Breakingthenews.net all reported on the release. The Information and Breakingthenews.net noted that the new model demonstrates performance that rivals leading United States frontier models on select industry benchmarks. [1][2][3][4][5]

According to The Information, Kimi K3.1 Pro is built on the architecture of its predecessor, Kimi K3. The outlet reported that the model is now ranked fourth on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence benchmark leaderboard. The Decoder added that the release is closing the performance gap with Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 model, while Unite.AI noted that it represents the first entry in Moonshot's new K3.1 series. [1][2][3]

Moonshot AI was founded in Beijing in March 2023 by Yang Zhilin, Zhou Xinyu, and Wu Yuxin. The company reached a valuation of 35 billion dollars by July 2026, making it the second most valuable privately held artificial intelligence company in China behind DeepSeek. Its backers include Alibaba Group and Tencent. In July 2026, Moonshot released Kimi K3, which became the largest open weights model ever created at 2.8 trillion parameters. [6]