AI news, 18 July: China unveils massive open AI model that rivals top US systems

Moonshot AI launches Kimi K3, world’s largest open-weight model. Chinese startup Moonshot on Friday released Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight AI system with a one-million-token context window. According to Reuters, the company says it approaches performance of Anthropic’s frontier Fable model and outperforms various OpenAI and Anthropic releases on certain complex tasks and benchmarks; independent evaluators placed it near the top of current systems. Open weights are promised soon. The release highlights how Chinese open models are rapidly closing the gap with leading proprietary US systems at lower cost, though fully self-hosting such a large model remains expensive for most users.

Xi Jinping pitches China as leader of inclusive global AI order. At the World AI Conference in Shanghai, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for sharing open-source AI technology as a public good, especially with developing nations, and warned against “new historical injustices” from uneven access. He promoted a China-led World AI Cooperation Organisation and urged human control of AI systems with early-warning mechanisms for risks. According to Reuters, the remarks challenge US influence over AI rules and standards while framing Beijing as a partner for the Global South amid competing US initiatives.

Nvidia CEO launches physical AI push in Japan. Jensen Huang unveiled Cosmos 3 Edge, a compact model for on-device vision reasoning and robot control, and announced intentions for Japanese industrial leaders such as Fujitsu, Hitachi, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, FANUC and Yaskawa to join an expanded Cosmos coalition. Nvidia says the technology will help robots and factories operate intelligently offline. Huang called physical AI a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Japan’s manufacturing strengths. The move supports sovereign AI and robotics ecosystems beyond pure language models.

Anthropic and investors formally launch Ode AI services firm. Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and other backers introduced Ode with Anthropic, a $1.5 billion company focused on embedding elite AI engineers inside enterprises to implement models (primarily Claude-first but not exclusively). TechCrunch reports that it aims to turn mid-size companies into AI winners by redesigning processes, not just supplying software. This reflects a growing industry view that deployment and custom integration, rather than models alone, will unlock the next wave of value.

Apple overtakes Nvidia as world’s most valuable company. On Friday Apple’s market capitalisation surpassed Nvidia’s as investors reassessed AI spending and growth outlooks, Reuters reported. The shift underscores how market sentiment around AI leaders can swing quickly based on broader economic and competitive signals.