Chinese Wenxin AI, with an investment of 720 billion, attracts attention... "The race towards AGI" officially kicks off

China’s promising artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI recently successfully completed a Series C funding round of $500 million, equivalent to 7.2 trillion KRW, attracting industry attention. As a representative generative AI company in China, Moonshot AI aims to leverage large-scale infrastructure investments to gain an advantage in the next-generation model development race.

This round of investment was led by IDG Capital with $150 million, with existing investors including Alibaba and Tencent also participating. As a result, the company’s valuation soared to $4.3 billion, approximately 6.192 trillion KRW, and it is reported that as of the announcement, cash holdings alone reached 10 billion RMB, about 1.44 trillion KRW.

Moonshot AI is one of China’s leading generative AI companies, often referred to as an “AI tiger.” Alongside companies like Zhipu AI(Z.ai) and MiniMax, it is competing against American models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google(GOOGL), with the ultimate goal of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that surpasses human capabilities. These companies have emerged as representatives of the rapidly growing Asian tech sector, akin to the “Four Asian Tigers.”

Currently, MiniMax and Zhipu AI are each advancing their initial public offerings (IPO) on the Hong Kong stock market. Zhipu AI has submitted its listing documents with a target to raise $560 million, approximately 8,060 billion KRW, while MiniMax has also initiated IPO procedures aiming to raise about $600 million, roughly 8,640 billion KRW. Moonshot AI, however, stated that it has secured sufficient funding and has no plans to go public for the time being. Founder and CEO Yang Zhilin emphasized in an internal letter, “We are not considering an IPO in the short term; our current priority is expanding AI infrastructure.”

Last year, Moonshot AI gained attention with its flagship model “Kimi K2 Thinking,” a super-large language model with up to 1 trillion parameters designed as a “thinking agent” capable of processing complex instructions step-by-step. It can utilize external software such as browsers, search engines, and data extraction tools to autonomously execute continuous tasks involving 200 to 300 steps.

In comparative evaluations against the latest US models like GPT-5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5, Kimi K2 Thinking performed excellently on multiple key metrics and received high praise from experts. This boosted Moonshot AI’s overseas revenue nearly fourfold, and its paying user base has increased by 170% since launch. The company is focusing on expansion driven by technological strength, especially demonstrating its competitiveness in the global open-source large language model race.

The US government’s attention to Moonshot AI is also increasing. According to a US government report last year, the company was introduced as a symbolic example of China’s deepening AI technology efforts and was recognized as a representative trend in promoting industrial restructuring and strengthening technological independence.

This funding round is seen as a vivid example of China’s strategic move toward autonomous growth of its tech companies amid the accelerating US-China technological rivalry. Moonshot AI’s multi-billion-dollar investments in AI infrastructure are expected to significantly impact the competitive landscape of the global large language model market.