China's Moonshot AI raised more-than-expected US$3.5 billion in its latest funding round, sending its valuation to US$35 billion, after its Kimi K3 artificial intelligence model hit the global AI market, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Initially targeting US$1 billion to US$2 billion, the Beijing-based startup is now planning a new round of funding with a pre-money valuation of US$50 billion and expects to complete final financing before a Hong Kong IPO as early as this year. The company unveiled Kimi K3, a 2.8 trillion-parameter model delivering performance approaching US rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI, and released the world's largest open-weight AI system for free download this week. The launch drove a global tech stock selloff, reflecting China's competitiveness despite technology export bans and computing constraints. The Trump administration has accused Moonshot AI of stealing from Anthropic's Fable model and acquiring advanced Nvidia AI chips.