Alibaba Group Holding Ltd-backed Moonshot AI released an upgrade of its flagship model, heating up a domestic arms race ahead of an expected rollout by Chinese sensation DeepSeek. The model, known as K2.5, joins a flurry of upgrades rolled out over the past month, reflecting a rush by China’s biggest AI players to get in ahead of the next unveiling by DeepSeek, which has teased a major release in recent weeks. That comes after recent initial public offerings by Chinese AI rivals Zhipu and MiniMax Group Inc. collectively raised more than US$1bil (RM3.95bil) in Hong Kong. The next day, its fintech affiliate Ant Group Co. announced a spatial perception model for robots developed by Robbyant, a subsidiary. Moonshot was founded by former Tsinghua University professor Yang Zhilin, who had earlier stints working on AI projects at Meta Platforms Inc and Google.

Source: The Star January 28, 2026 11:21 UTC