Cursor, a well-funded U.S. AI coding startup, launched its new Composer 2 model claiming 'frontier-level coding intelligence,' but it was soon revealed to be built on top of Moonshot AI's open-source Kimi 2.5 model. Cursor's VP acknowledged using Kimi as a base but emphasized that most compute came from their own training, resulting in different benchmark performance. The company stated its use complied with Kimi's license, and Moonshot AI confirmed it was part of an authorized commercial partnership via Fireworks AI.
Background
Cursor is a prominent U.S. AI coding startup that raised $2.3 billion at a $29.3 billion valuation last fall, while Moonshot AI is a Chinese AI company backed by Alibaba and HongShan, known for its open-source Kimi models.
- Source
- TechCrunch
- Published
- Mar 23, 2026 at 02:41 AM
- Score
- 7.0 / 10