Beijing startup Moonshot AI has halted new subscriptions to its flagship model Kimi K3 after a surge of demand overwhelmed the company’s capacity within days of the public launch, the firm said. Existing subscribers will be prioritised while Moonshot scales up infrastructure and reopens access in batches.
## Rapid uptake and immediate limits
Kimi K3, a 2.8‑trillion‑parameter open‑source model unveiled late last week, attracted far more users than Moonshot had expected, the company said in a post on X. “Over the past 48 hours, demand has pushed close to the limits of our current capacity,” the firm wrote, adding it would temporarily suspend new subscriptions while it expands resources.
Industry analysts say such spikes are common with high‑profile releases. “New model releases generally trigger massive interest, which can strain existing compute infrastructure,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia. He added that Kimi K3 is “very demanding” in compute, making allocation expensive and difficult and suggesting Moonshot may not have fully anticipated the scale of initial demand.
## Technical standing and performance
Kimi K3 has been touted as one of the largest open‑source AI models, and after its rollout it ranked first on Arena
