Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.1 · snapshot 16 Jul 2026
Twelve months ago the best open model from China trailed the US closed frontier by roughly half a year. Today Kimi K3 lands within ~1 month and 2.8 points of it on Artificial Analysis's Intelligence Index — and within a week on agentic coding. Here is the whole race, measured in months of lag.
The race to the AI frontier, US vs China
For each Chinese open‑weight frontier release, the horizontal distance back to the date the US closed frontier first reached the same score. Dots are actual releases; the line is the month‑by‑month reading.
Released 16 July 2026 (open weights due ~27 July). On every AA metric it is the new Chinese open‑weight frontier — and the single biggest one‑shot narrowing yet.
Moonshot's line went from mid‑pack to the frontier in a year. K3 alone is a jump over K2.6, three months earlier.
Lag and point‑gap to the US closed frontier, under each benchmark — with K3 counted as open.
Before K3, the Chinese open frontier (GLM‑5.2) sat behind on the Intelligence Index. K3 cut that to .
| Released | Model | Score | US frontier first matched | Lag |
|---|