Moonshot AI Releases Kimi K3 Weights with New ‘Open Weight’ Licensing Terms

Moonshot AI has released the weights for its Kimi K3 model, a 2.8 trillion parameter large language model, for public download. The company calls this an ‘open weight’ release under a new license with a commercial clause for big service providers. The model is already available for business use on platforms such as OpenRouter.

Key takeaways

• Moonshot AI has released the weights for its 2.8 trillion parameter Kimi K3 model.
• The release is described as ‘open weight,’ not traditional open source.
• The new license requires large ‘Model as a Service’ businesses with over $20M in revenue to enter a separate agreement.
• This marks a shift from the previous K2 model’s modified MIT license.
• The model is already available for commercial use on platforms like OpenRouter.

The Release: Massive 2.8 Trillion Parameter Model Now Available

Moonshot AI has made the weights for its Kimi K3 model public. This fulfills a promise the company made in July 2026. The files are on Hugging Face and total 1.56TB.

The company avoids traditional open-source labels. Moonshot AI instead uses the phrase “open weight.” This continues a pattern from its earlier K2 model, which had a modified MIT license.

For K3, the license has changed again. It now requires any large “Model as a Service” business with revenue above $20 million in a year to make a separate deal with Moonshot AI. Even with this public release, commercial access already exists through several providers on OpenRouter.

Evolving Licensing: From ‘Janky Modified MIT’ to Specific Commercial Terms

The new Kimi K3 license is different from the one for the K2 model. Analysts called the K2 license a “janky modified version of the MIT license.” It mainly added one paragraph. That clause required products with over 100 million monthly users or $20 million monthly revenue to show “Kimi K2” on their interface.

A New Clause for Service Businesses

The K3 license no longer calls itself “modified MIT.” It introduces a clearer commercial rule. Now, a “Model as a Service” business with yearly revenue exceeding $20 million must arrange a separate agreement with Moonshot AI. The firm sticks with the “open weight” description for this approach.

Positioning as ‘Open Weight’ and Immediate Market Availability

Moonshot AI deliberately uses the term “open weight,” not “open source.” A review of its licensing documents shows the company makes no claim to be open source. It chooses the “open weight” label on purpose.

The model is ready for use right now on several platforms. OpenRouter lists Kimi K3 from 7 different providers. Their pricing is $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. This matches Moonshot AI’s own rate.