Chinese model Kimi 3 adds pressure on Trump administration’s AI policy

The release of the Chinese AI model Kimi 3 is forcing Washington and Silicon Valley to reckon with another sign of intense competition with Beijing, renewing questions over how to curb the country’s technology capabilities. 

Kimi 3, released late last week by the China-based firm Moonshot AI, quickly sent shockwaves through industry and policy circles, threatening the leads in coding ability of U.S. labs and models like Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol.

The model’s release is boosting pressure on the Trump administration to keep the country’s edge over China as it tries to pin down its domestic AI policy amid intense political backlash and intraparty divisions.

Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer at OpenAI, told reporters on Tuesday that he thinks the introduction of Kimi 3 “only reinforces … the importance of the U.S. really establishing a coherent framework and process” for AI model testing.

“There is a benefit of having a really clearly defined process so that you could speed the market and have real clarity on being able to get this out to various defenders,” Lehane added, referring to government and critical infrastructure. 

President Trump signed an executive order in early June laying out the process for a voluntary testing framework, in which artificial intelligence companies can share their models with the government for up to 30 days before releasing them publicly. 

It gave agencies 60 days, or until Aug. 1, to create a classified benchmarking process for “covered frontier” AI models and a voluntary framework for companies to abide by. 

The White House’s stance on AI development has fluctuated in the meantime, leaving companies in limbo. Anthropic and OpenAI stalled their latest model rollouts to the public, at the request of the government last month.

David Sacks, former White House AI and crypto czar, argued last week the U.S. is risking its competitive edge. 

“Meanwhile America is tying itself in knots: politicians and bureaucrats are banning new data centers, piling on state regulations, and pushing for new federal agencies to pre-approve frontier models,” the venture capitalist wrote on social media.

Concerns over AI IP theft

Tensions between the U.S. and China over AI development have escalated in recent months, fueled by allegations of intellectual property (IP) theft from Chinese companies, who are........

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