Chinese AI companies led by Moonshot AI are advancing open-source multi-agent systems, releasing models that coordinate hundreds of sub-agents and driving rapid commercial growth as Beijing expands computing capacity and policy support.
Multi-agent systems in practice
Wang Huan, an algorithm researcher at Moonshot AI, describes a shift from single agents to coordinated teams. “In the past, a single AI agent was like a capable assistant,” Wang explained. “Now we want it to work more like a project manager that can coordinate an entire team.” He offered an analogy: “Imagine a family preparing for a move. One person packs the books, another arranges transportation, someone else checks the inventory, and finally, everything is reviewed together. A multi-agent system works in a similar way. A lead agent first breaks down a complex task, then coordinates multiple specialized sub-agents to work on different parts simultaneously.”
Moonshot has steadily rolled out multi-agent capabilities. In January this year the company released and open-sourced its Kimi K2.5 model, introducing multi-agent features for the first time and significantly reducing the number of steps required to complete complex tasks. Three months later it launched Kimi K2.6, which can coordinate 300 sub-agents to carry out 4,000 collaborative task steps in parallel and, under an autonomous agent framework, operate independently for up to five consecutive days. On July 16 the company unveiled Kimi K3. With 2.8 trillion parameters, it is currently the world’s largest open-source AI model by parameter count.
“Multi-agent systems represent a new frontier for scaling AI models,” said Yang Zhilin, founder of Moonshot AI. “The rapid pace of technological progress reminds us that continuous innovation is essential.”
By mid-June this year Moonshot AI’s annual recurring revenue had tripled compared to March, and more than 70 percent of its revenue now comes from application programming interface (API) services. “Our number of paying overseas users has quadrupled, and our products are now available in more than 200 countries and regions,” said Huang Zhenxin, the company’s head of business operations.
Beijing’s push for AI infrastructure
Beijing is accelerating efforts to position itself as a global AI hub, rolling out nine major initiatives covering original technology innovation, strengthening an independent intelligent computing ecosystem, and improving high-quality data resources. “We will continue to leverage Beijing’s strong concentration of talent while improving policy support,” said Lin Jianhua, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform. “By focusing on core technology breakthroughs, shared technology platforms, and demonstration applications, we will launch major projects to foster new forms of the intelligent economy.”
During the first half of this year the city added 22,000 PFLOPS of new computing capacity, bringing Beijing’s total to 82,000 PFLOPS.
Other Beijing startups are also scaling: AI infrastructure platform SiliconFlow has gained more than 10 million registered users, while ShengShu Technology, which focuses on developing general-purpose world models, serves more than 40 million individual users and over 10,000 enterprise users across more than 200 countries and regions.
Looking ahead, Moonshot AI plans to expand its open-source strategy in the second half of the year. “We will continue investing in more efficient model architectures, longer context windows, and more capable multi-agent systems,” Yang said. “Through solid foundational technological innovation and an open approach to collaboration, we hope to make more AI technologies widely accessible and benefit more users.”
