Chinese AI startup MiniMax Group is working on a large language model with 2.7 trillion parameters, the largest open-weight AI model released by a Chinese firm and possibly the largest in the world, a person with direct knowledge told Reuters. The new model could be released as early as the third quarter. The company declined to comment. Lower-cost alternatives to US systems from Chinese providers such as MiniMax, Z.ai and DeepSeek are gaining traction in the US and other hubs. MiniMax will later this month launch H3, its frontier-level multimodal video generation model. Founded in 2021, MiniMax raised HK$4.8 billion in its Hong Kong initial public offering in January and is planning a second listing in Shanghai's STAR Market. Meituan's LongCat-2.0 and DeepSeek's V4-Pro lead China's AI industry with 1.6 trillion total parameters. The massive architectural expansion relies heavily on Mixture of Experts engineering to balance intelligence with operational costs.