Kimi K3's popularity explodes... 'We won't accept new subscribers' US…

Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 model has driven such explosive user demand that the company suspended new subscriber registrations due to GPU capacity limits, whilst performing comparably to proprietary models like Claude and GPT. The release has reignited US-China AI competition tensions and triggered sell-offs in semiconductor stocks, with US policymakers debating whether Chinese open-source models represent a national security threat or evidence of regulatory overreach. If you're building closed-source AI infrastructure or selling to US enterprises, you just watched a Chinese open-source model saturate GPU capacity and trigger a geopolitical reckoning—the US regulatory response will now determine whether your moat is market-driven or mandate-driven. The market is pricing in Chinese capability faster than US policy can respond, and your customers will soon face pressure to choose between performance and national security signalling.