An electric piano is pictured outside the office of the startup Moonshot AI in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 1, 2025. (Xinhua/Ji Hang)

by Xinhua writer Ji Hang

BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- As an electric piano softly rippled out Pachelbel's Canon, what captivated listeners was not the melody itself but the fact that it was performed by Moonshot AI's K2 model, not human hands.

The Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI unveiled its latest open-source model, K2, last month, connecting it to the electric piano they often played during lunch breaks outside the office and letting the AI perform on its own.

"We are all music lovers, and some of our managers used to play in campus bands," said Du Yulun, a researcher at Moonshot AI, adding that the company's Mandarin name pays tribute to the album "The Dark Side of the Moon," with every meeting room named after a classic band or album.

Founded in March 2023, the company's flagship Kimi chatbot is built for long-context mastery, first making waves in October with its ability to handle 200,000 words and scaling up to 2 million words in less than six months.

To many, AI may come across as cold code without emotion, but the engineers' appreciation for art drives this unicorn company to focus on user experience, shaping every reply to feel genuine and warm, polished, human and never distant.

According to Moonshot AI, K2 writes with attention to detail, emotion and context rather than giving abstract answers, with some responses even sparking deeper reflection.

The company even introduced a popular sci-fi AI writing exercise. "K2 created a short novel rich in detail and moments that hit readers straight in the heart," said Du, explaining that they had given K2 only a simple prompt asking what if reality itself is an AI.

The startup's monthly active users surged 100-fold in 2024, reaching over 36 million by October. According to Hong Kong-based market research firm Counterpoint, Kimi became the third most widely used chatbot in China by November 2024.

On Hugging Face, a website where the global AI community collaborates on models, datasets and applications, K2 has been downloaded over 410,000 times as of Tuesday.

"The Moonshot AI team has been shipping a series of impressive models over the past few months. A name we will likely keep seeing in the news," stated Thomas Wolf, the co-founder of Hugging Face, in a post on social media platform X.

An article published in July in the prestigious scientific journal Nature regarded K2 as "another DeepSeek moment" for the global AI community.

The article suggests that the launch of a second high-performance model following DeepSeek's R1 launch in January indicates that China's recent AI breakthroughs are part of a sustained trend rather than isolated successes.

These companies embody China's push to advance AI and diversify its applications. The country's rapid AI development is driven by strong policy support, steady economic progress, a vast market, industrial strength, and a vibrant innovation ecosystem.

The Chinese government work report released earlier this year called for the widespread use of large-scale AI models. It is the first time that "large-scale AI models," represented by DeepSeek, have made it into the annual report.

China's gross domestic product grew 5.3 percent year on year in the first half of 2025, and this steady economic momentum is fueling AI's continuous development.

China boasts a vast AI market, with over 1.12 billion internet users as of June 2025, and the user base of generative AI products in the country totaled 230 million by June 2024.

Facing the AI boom, experts believe that cultivating AI talents will help foster a sustainable ecosystem to power technological advancement.

More than 500 universities now offer AI-related majors or have launched dedicated schools, while tech firms are teaming up with universities to nurture the next generation of experts.

China has released 1,509 large AI models, the highest number globally, accounting for a substantial share of the 3,755 models launched worldwide to date. Additionally, China boasts 71 AI unicorns, representing about 26 percent of the world's 271.

Unlike OpenAI, which started as an open-source project before moving to a closed model, many Chinese AI firms deliberately pursue an open-source approach from the start.

"K2's open-source design reflects our goal to improve accessibility and empower individuals, thus promoting the democratization of technology," Du said.

Moonshot AI told Xinhua that China's open-source AI models are racing against closed-source counterparts worldwide. The company expects that there will be more AI firms joining the open-source bandwagon, showcasing the enduring creative vitality in China's AI landscape.

"We won't choose closed-source," DeepSeek's founder Liang Wenfeng said during a media interview last July, emphasizing that the company's top priority is building a robust technological ecosystem to promote collaboration and innovation.

China adheres to "Tech for Good" with a people-centered approach. In 2023, it launched the Global AI Governance Initiative at the 78th UN General Assembly to enhance international cooperation on AI capacity building.

Recently, the Chinese government proposed creating a global AI cooperation organization aimed at bridging the digital divide and promoting inclusive development and positive use of AI. ■