Semiconductor and AI stocks dropped across the board Friday. Taiwan's benchmark fell more than 6%. Japan closed down 4%. The Nasdaq slid 1.5%, its worst session of the week.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) fell below its EMA support band—the moving average tracking the price trend over the prior months—for the first time since April, extending a rout that has put it more than 20% below its late-June record high.
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index—an independent composite benchmark that aggregates model performance across reasoning, knowledge, mathematics, and coding—K3 scored 57, ranking above Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5, practically on par with Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol, beating them in specific benchmarks at a fraction of the price. Full weights drop July 27 under a Modified MIT license which means small labs will have that model available for free.
Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu also framed this as a catch-up. “At a high level, K3 feels confirmatory of our views that (1) AI [state of the art] continues to evolve rapidly; and (2) China AI can continue to keep pace with global [state of the art], and take some share over time.”
Moonshot is backed by Alibaba, which put $1 billion into the company in 2024 at a $2.5 billion valuation. The startup now sits at roughly $31.5 billion.
