Kimi K3 model added to GitHub Copilot amid US‑China AI rivalry

GitHub announced that the Chinese Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 model – a 2.8‑trillion‑parameter open‑weight system – will be integrated into its Copilot coding assistant. The model, built on a mixture‑of‑experts architecture and hosted by Fireworks AI, is being rolled out across all Copilot subscription tiers, with organization‑level activation required for business plans. Weights for Kimi K3 have been released on Hugging Face, making the model available for download and local use.

In parallel, China’s ByteDance has prohibited its employees from distilling U.S. AI models after accusations that Kimi K3 was derived from Anthropic’s Fable model. The move reflects growing sensitivity in Chinese AI labs to U.S. concerns over model copying. Anthropic, meanwhile, confirmed it is developing a custom ASIC for its Claude model in partnership with Samsung and Broadcom.