Visitors look at the Kimi K3 AI model on display at the Moonshot AI booth during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in July. [Reuters]
Visitors look at the Kimi K3 AI model on display at the Moonshot AI booth during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in July. [Reuters]

A teenage prodigy who helped lead development of the Kimi K3 model at Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI has reportedly left the company and joined a US startup.

The South China Morning Post reported Wednesday (local time) that an SNS account called "Apher Grok," which tracks AI talent moves in the US, posted that Chen Guangwei, 17, who worked on the Kimi K3 model, had joined Discovery Loop after leaving Moonshot AI.

The report has not been confirmed. Chen has not publicly disclosed his next employer, and Discovery Loop said it does not comment on personal matters.

Discovery Loop is an AI startup founded in August by four former Google researchers, including Jeff Dean. The company aims to automate scientific research using AI and has yet to release any product. Business Insider reported last month that it was seeking funding at a target valuation of $50 billion.

Chen recently announced his departure from Moonshot AI on SNS, writing that he was "particularly grateful that they trusted and hired me when I was 16." His mention that he would be heading to "the Bay Area" in California sparked speculation that he might be joining Anthropic. Chen put those rumors to rest himself, replying directly to a comment asking about it: "No way."

Chen had worked as a machine learning researcher on Moonshot AI's Kimi team since November last year and was deeply involved in R&D of the core architecture underlying Kimi K3. Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3 in July — one of the world's largest open-weight AI models, with about 2.8 trillion parameters — sending shockwaves through the industry in what observers dubbed the "Kimi shock."


kate01@heraldcorp.com