MiniMax M3: open-weights 428B MoE with 1M context and native multimodality
MiniMax released M3 on 2026-06-01 (open weights on Hugging Face 2026-06-02): a ~428B-parameter MoE (~23B active) with MiniMax Sparse Attention, a 1M-token context and native image/video input, aimed at agentic coding at very low prices; it was followed by the H3 video model (07-31) and Music-3.0 (07-16).
Key facts
- ~428B total / ~23B active parameters; 1M-token context (third-party write-ups)
- Reported SWE-bench Verified 80.5% and SWE-Bench Pro 59.0% (vendor claims via secondary sources)
- Price: $0.28/M input, $1.10/M output (OpenRouter-listed)
- Follow-ups per MiniMax release notes: Music-3.0 (2026-07-16), H3 omni-modal video model with native stereo audio (2026-07-31)
What happened
MiniMax, which listed in Hong Kong in January 2026, shipped M3 as its flagship coding/agent model. Official release notes list the M2.5 (Feb), M2.7 (Mar 18, "beginning the journey of recursive self-improvement") and M3 (Jun 1) cadence, then the H3 video model on 2026-07-31 ("understands creative intent across multimodal context — text, image, video, and audio").
Why it matters
M3 made 1M context + native multimodality + frontier-ish coding available as open weights at ~1/20th of Western frontier prices.
Changelog
- 2026-09-29: created
Related events
- Zhipu AI and MiniMax become first LLM labs to go public (Hong Kong) ★★★★
- MiniMax open-sources Music 3.0, a five-minute full-song generator ★★★
Sources (4)
- officialMiniMax API docs: model release notes
- docsOpenRouter: MiniMax M3
- pressFireworks: MiniMax M3 is live
- pressDataNorth: MiniMax launches M3
id: 2026-06-01-minimax-m3 · updated 2026-09-29 · open in the interactive timeline