In this weekend deep dive, Zaid breaks down Kimi K3, the new Chinese AI model that rattled tech stocks and revived fears that America’s AI lead is shrinking. Zaid explains why cheaper open-weight models could pressure companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, why this might be a good thing for Nvidia and the broader AI buildout, and what Washington should do as China closes the gap.

Deep Dive: Did China Break the AI Trade Again?

The Rundown

[SPEAKER_A] Welcome back to The Rundown for another weekend deep dive. Today we are talking about Kimi K3, a new Chinese AI model that sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Last week, a Chinese startup called Moonshot AI released a model that rivaled some of the best models from OpenAI and Anthropic, and within hours tech stocks were selling off. So in today's episode, we'll break down what Kimi K3 actually is, why cheaper and open-source AI models could completely change the economics of the AI industry, and who the biggest winners and losers could be of this new AI reality. We got a great one for you today. Let's dive in. Before we get into why markets are freaking out, let me tell you more about Kimi K3. Kimi was released by a Beijing-based AI startup called Moonshot AI. Moonshot was founded back in 2023 by 33-year-old Yang Zhilin And this guy has a pretty stacked resume. He got his PhD from Carnegie Mellon, and he worked at both Meta and Google Brain. He eventually went back to China though to build his own AI lab and founded Moonshot AI. And for the last year and a half or so, Moonshot has mostly been living in Deepseek's shadow. Now, Deepseek became the breakout Chinese AI startup after releasing their R1 model in early 2025, which also caused a market panic. What's interesting about that is that Moonshot also released their own model on the exact same day as Deepseek R1, but nobody really cared at the time because everyone was obsessed with Deepseek. Well, fast forward to July 17th, 2026, and Moonshot finally got its moment.

Deep Dive: Did China Break the AI Trade Again?

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Deep Dive: Did China Break the AI Trade Again?

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.