Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max Tie in Intelligence, Alibaba to Open Weights Next Week
rohanpaul_ai · x · 2026-08-07
According to Artificial Analysis, Kimi K3 still leads open weights at 57 on the Intelligence Index, but Alibaba's upcoming Qwen3.8 Max is just 1 point behind at 56, making them effectively tied on capability.
Parameters & Cost:
- Kimi K3: 2.8T total parameters, $0.86 per task.
- Qwen3.8 Max: 2.4T total parameters with 95B active, $1.14 per task.
In a shift of strategy, Alibaba announced plans to release the Qwen3.8 Max weights next week, moving away from keeping its Max class proprietary. Once released, it will be their largest open weights model to date. Although Qwen3.8 Max beats Kimi K3 on GDPval-AA (1739 vs 1685 Elo), it requires more agentic turns, driving up output token usage by 45% and resulting in a higher cost per task.
Related event: Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max Evaluations Approach Top Closed-Source Models(2 posts)→
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