Moonshot’s Kimi 2.5 becomes the world’s top-ranked open source model as Chinese labs rush festival-timed launches, using open ecosystems and billion-yuan campaigns to accelerate adoption and challenge US proprietary AI.
China’s open-source AI ecosystem has moved into the global front rank, led by Moonshot AI’s Kimi 2.5, now regarded as the most advanced open-source model worldwide. The system ranks fifth on consultancy Artificial Analysis’ Intelligence Index, trailing only leading US closed-source models, and stands as both the only open-source and the only Chinese model in the global top five. The performance signals China’s narrowing gap with proprietary US systems through open releases rather than closed stacks.
The momentum has triggered a broader pre–Lunar New Year launch sprint. The holiday is viewed as a high-visibility window for product discovery and user acquisition, prompting multiple labs to accelerate upgrades.
Zhipu AI (Z.ai) is preparing GLM-5, promising stronger creative writing, coding, reasoning and agentic capabilities. MiniMax plans M2.2, a coding-focused refresh of M2.1. Alibaba has already released Qwen3-Max-Thinking, while Moonshot’s Kimi 2.5 anchors the open-source push.
DeepSeek, last year’s disruptor with its low-cost V3 and R1 models, is not expected to unveil a major update this season. A minor V3 refresh is likely, while its planned trillion-parameter foundational model faces slower training timelines. That delay leaves Kimi 2.5 as China’s leading open-source benchmark for now.
Distribution is scaling just as aggressively. Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba are deploying billion-yuan giveaway campaigns to drive chatbot adoption and ecosystem lock-in, underscoring how open models, timed releases and mass-market incentives are converging to reshape the competitive balance in AI.
