China Ministry of Commerce rejects US AI distillation accusations against Moonshot's Kimi K3, warns of countermeasures
China's Commerce Ministry said US claims Moonshot distilled American models to build Kimi K3 have no factual or legal basis, calling the accusation and threatened sanctions on Chinese AI firms acts of AI hegemony. It follows a US probe into Moonshot's chip access. Kimi K3 launche
China's Ministry of Commerce pushed back on Monday against US accusations that Chinese AI firm Moonshot distilled American frontier models to train its Kimi K3 system, saying the claim has no factual or legal basis and calling both the accusation and threatened sanctions against Chinese AI companies acts of AI hegemony. It marks Beijing's first direct government response to Trump administration officials who last week accused Moonshot of the practice, a claim now under formal investigation by the US Bureau of Industry and Security, which is examining whether Moonshot and similar Chinese firms are accessing advanced Nvidia chips subject to export controls. Kimi K3, released July 16, has drawn attention across Silicon Valley for matching or exceeding the performance of leading US models on several benchmarks, timing that Beijing argues left little room for the distillation Washington alleges. The exchange marks a further escalation in the US-China dispute over AI intellectual property and chip access, layered on top of existing export-control tensions between the two countries.