Story perspectives

China launches Kimi K3; US reviews AI, EU bids factories

8/7/2026

Summary

China Unveils K3

China released the open-weight Kimi K3 model in July 2026, matching GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8.
Keegan McBride, director at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said U.S. export controls have limited Chinese AI firms’ chip access, leading to alleged Nvidia chip smuggling.
The Kimi K3 launch shifted U.S. focus from hardware limits to software, prompting President Donald Trump’s administration to begin a voluntary 30-day review of frontier models.

Summary

AI Giants Surge

Cambricon Technologies reported first-half revenue of 6 billion yuan, up 108%, and profit of 2.3 billion yuan, up 122.6%, in a stock filing.
The European Union opened bidding for seven AI gigafactories, earmarking €10 billion of public money and seeking €20 billion from private investors while limiting ownership.
Unitree Robotics IPO on Shanghai’s Star Market valued the firm at 60.99 billion yuan, raised 6.1 billion yuan, and secured a 141 million-yuan DeepSeek investment to co-develop AI models.

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China Unveils K3

China released the open-weight Kimi K3 model in July 2026, matching GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8.
Keegan McBride, director at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said U.S. export controls have limited Chinese AI firms’ chip access, leading to alleged Nvidia chip smuggling.
The Kimi K3 launch shifted U.S. focus from hardware limits to software, prompting President Donald Trump’s administration to begin a voluntary 30-day review of frontier models.

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