New Free AI Model out of China Claims to Beat GPT-5

A new AI model has emerged out of China that is said to outperform GPT-5 and other top models. Released by Chinese AI lab Moonshot, the thinking model known as K2 Thinking is also completely free to use and open-source. 

• Upcoming Chinese AI company Moonshot has released a thinking model that claims to be superior to existing models including GPT-5.
• The model combines long-horizon planning, adaptive reasoning, and the use of online tools to provide more accurate answers.
• This release heats up the AI race afresh, challenging everything the existing models have to offer.

Known as a  Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model, Kimi K2 Thinking is said to combine long-horizon planning, adaptive reasoning, and the use of online tools such as browsers to provide answers.

With this setup, it is able to give more precise and clear answers to questions that users ask, based on training on 1 trillion parameters.

A Free AI Model that Offers More

Kimi K2 Thinking was built on the Kimi 2 model that Moonshot released in July. Although free, the company claims it beats OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 on key AI benchmarks.

Moonshot says this superior performance is due to its ability to use different tools at the same time.

“By reasoning while actively using a diverse set of tools, K2 Thinking is capable of planning, reasoning, executing, and adapting across hundreds of steps to tackle some of the most challenging academic and analytical problems.” 

The open-source model is also much cheaper to train, with a maximum of $5 million required, which is much cheaper than training American models but still more expensive than DeepSeek.

Strengthening AI War Between the U.S. and China

American AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have been in the lead on the global AI stage, but China is catching up fast and probably winning.

After DeepSeek, another Chinese model that took the industry by storm, Kimi K2 Thinking has appeared with better features and strengths, and for free.

If the trend continues, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other American AI giants will have to rethink their strategies to stay ahead.

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