China’s Moonshot AI pauses new Kimi K3 subscriptions amid surge in demand

NEW DELHI: China’s Moonshot AI has temporarily paused new subscriptions for its latest AI model Kimi K3 amid a sharp surge in demand, as per a statement by the company.

In a social media post, Kimi AI stated the surge in demand over the last 48 hours has pushed the company’s current capacity close to its limits. Hence, to ensure a stable experience for existing subscribers, new subscriptions have been temporarily paused.

“Over the past 48 hours, demand has pushed close to the limits of our current capacity. To protect the experience of existing subscribers, we’re temporarily pausing new subscriptions and prioritising compute for current members,” it said. The company further noted, while compute resources are being prioritised for current members, “Existing subscribers will not be affected.”

Apart from this, the company is adding further capacity and will reopen new subscription spots in batches. “We’re adding capacity as fast as we can and will reopen new subscription spots in batches,” it said. Furthermore, the company will also introduce two more focused membership plans to enable more precise allocation of computing resources and help maintain a stable user experience.

Kimi K3 has received far more love than we expected, and our GPUs are feeling it.

Over the past 48 hours, demand has pushed close to the limits of our current capacity. To protect the experience of existing subscribers, we’re temporarily pausing new subscriptions and…

— Kimi.ai (@Kimi_Moonshot) July 19, 2026

“Going forward, we’ll also split membership into two more focused plans: Kimi Membership for Kimi Web, App, and Work; and Kimi Code Membership for coding workflows. This will help us match compute more precisely and keep the experience stable,” it said.

Developed by the Chinese startup Moonshot AI, Kimi K3 is a 2.8 trillion-parameter model with a 1-million-token context window. “It is the world’s first open 3T-class model, designed for frontier intelligence across long-horizon coding, knowledge work, and reasoning,” the company said in its blog.

“Kimi K3 is available today on Kimi.com, Kimi Work, Kimi Code, and the Kimi API. At launch, Kimi K3 will use max thinking effort by default, with low- and high-effort modes to be introduced in subsequent updates,” the company added. The full model weights will come out by July 27, 2026.

The startup claimed that its model delivered frontier-level performance across its evaluation suite, although it still lagged behind Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 SoI. (ANI)