Moonshot AI’s updated Kimi model offers expanded context window, improved coding

Alibaba Group Holding-backed Moonshot AI is set to release an updated version of the Kimi K2 artificial intelligence model that took the world by storm in July.

On Wednesday, the Beijing-based start-up announced a giveaway for 20 users to beta test a model called Kimi K2-0905 on its Discord server. The announcement was later edited with the updated model’s name and other details removed.

The original version of the model had been referred to as Kimi K2-0711, referring to its release date of July 11.

According to the original Discord post written by Aspen Choong, a member of Moonshot AI’s growth team based in Shanghai, the updated model would have significantly improved coding abilities and an expanded context window – from 128,000 to 256,000 tokens – allowing it to handle the lengthier inputs necessary for tasks such as complex coding.

The updated model would also retain the powerful creative writing abilities that were praised when the original version was released, but this time with “slightly less hallucination”, the post said.

However, it will not have reasoning or vision capabilities, despite Moonshot AI previously saying it had plans to add these.