Kimi K3 Release Date: What We Know So Far

Moonshot AI has officially acknowledged the development of Kimi K3, the next-generation large language model following the widely adopted Kimi K2. While no exact launch date has been pinned down publicly, a combination of official hints, developer conference signals, and community research paint a clear picture.

Official Statements

In a developer briefing published on Moonshot AI's official channels in late March 2026, the team confirmed that Kimi K3 is in the final stages of pre-release evaluation. The language used — "final evaluation phase" — typically precedes a commercial release by 4–8 weeks in Moonshot's historical pattern.

"We're extremely proud of what K3 achieves. The benchmarks speak for themselves, and we can't wait to share it with the world." — Moonshot AI Engineering Blog, March 2026

What the Roadmap Suggests

Based on Moonshot AI's previous cadence:

• Kimi K1 launched in Q3 2023
• Kimi K1.5 followed in Q1 2024
• Kimi K2 dropped in mid-2025

If the pattern holds, Kimi K3 is expected to launch in Q2 2026, most likely between May and June.

Developer API Access

Moonshot's API platform (platform.moonshot.cn) has seen a surge in waitlist signups for K3 access. The platform team confirmed in a forum post that early API access would open "weeks before the public consumer launch," suggesting a staged rollout strategy similar to K2.

Why It Matters

Kimi K3 is expected to be Moonshot AI's most capable model yet, with improvements across:

• Long-context reasoning (reportedly up to 1M tokens)
• Multimodal input (text, images, and audio)
• Coding benchmarks targeting state-of-the-art performance on HumanEval and SWE-bench
• Multilingual coverage across 50+ languages

How to Stay Updated

• Follow @Kimi_Moonshot on X
• Monitor kimi.ai for live product updates
• Check the Moonshot AI developer blog at moonshot.cn

This page will be updated as new information becomes available.