tech
March 22, 2026
Cursor admits its new coding model was built on top of Moonshot AI’s Kimi
Building on top of a Chinese model feels particularly fraught right now.
TL;DR
- Cursor launched its new AI coding model, Composer 2, claiming "frontier-level coding intelligence."
- An X user identified Composer 2 as being based on Moonshot AI's Kimi 2.5 model.
- Cursor's VP of developer education confirmed Composer 2 started from an open-source base, with about 25% of compute from Kimi and the rest from their own training.
- Cursor stated Composer 2's performance differs significantly from Kimi's due to their extensive training.
- Kimi's account on X confirmed Cursor used Kimi as part of an authorized commercial partnership with Fireworks AI.
- Cursor co-founder acknowledged it was a mistake not to mention the Kimi base in their initial announcement.
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