MiniMax

Overview

Shanghai-based AI startup (founded 2021). Develops frontier multimodal models and consumer AI products. Best known in China for role-play and character AI products; internationally recognized since the MiniMax M3 release (June 1, 2026) for frontier-class coding and agent benchmarks.

As of mid-2026, MiniMax is one of the few Chinese AI startups to publish competitive results on Western coding/agent benchmarks (SWE-Bench Pro, BrowseComp), alongside Z.ai (GLM-5.2) and Alibaba / Qwen AI Lab (Qwen).

Key People

• Yang Zhilin — CEO and co-founder

Models & Products

• MiniMax M3 — Released June 1, 2026; 428B MoE (23B active), 1M context, native multimodal, SWE-Bench Pro 59.0%, BrowseComp 83.5; open-weight on HuggingFace
• MiniMax M3 Pro (unconfirmed) — Reported 2026-07-08 by The Information (two unnamed sources): 2.7T total parameters, Q3 2026 open-source release target. Not confirmed by MiniMax as of 2026-07-21. → minimax#m3-pro-watch

Recent Activity

• 2026-07-08: M3 Pro — 2.7T-parameter open-source model reported for Q3 2026 {#m3-pro-watch} — The Information (July 8, Juro Osawa, two unnamed sources) reported that MiniMax is planning to release an open-source model codenamed M3 Pro with 2.7 trillion total parameters, targeting a Q3 2026 open-source release. Not confirmed by MiniMax as of July 21, 2026. ⚠️ Caveats: single-sourced; MiniMax has not confirmed name, size, or date; nothing is downloadable; release tied to China's ongoing policy discussions around open-source AI — date can slip; active parameters and context window unknown. If accurate: would be the largest open-weight model by total parameter count (vs. Kimi K3 at 2.8T, DeepSeek V4 at 1.6T). Architecture assumed MoE (M3 is MoE with 23B active / 428B total — 6.3× scale-up). Coverage: The Information, AI Weekly, Silicon Report. → (source) (The Information)

• 2026-07-17: MiniMax M3 featured at WAIC 2026 — MiniMax's M3 model was a top-billed product at the World AI Conference in Shanghai (July 17-20), the largest AI conference in China. Xi Jinping gave the opening keynote. M3 represents MiniMax's entry into the global frontier model conversation. (source)

• 2026-06-01: MiniMax M3 released — Launched June 1, 2026 (captured July 17 via WAIC 2026 coverage). See MiniMax M3. (source)

Strategic Position

• Occupies the "Chinese frontier open-weight" tier alongside Qwen (Alibaba) and GLM (Z.ai)
• Unlike those labs, MiniMax is independent (not a major tech conglomerate subsidiary), backed by VC
• M3's BrowseComp 83.5 (beats Claude Opus 4.7 at 79.3) puts it in the global agent conversation
• Primarily serves Chinese consumer market; expanding globally via API access in English
• Open-weight strategy (HuggingFace) distinguishes it from closed labs

Related

• MiniMax M3 — primary model
• Z.ai — comparable Chinese open-weight frontier lab (GLM-5.2)
• Alibaba / Qwen AI Lab — Qwen lab; different tier (larger conglomerate)
• Agents (LLM Agents) — M3's agent benchmark performance (BrowseComp, OSWorld)