{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-06-01-minimax-m3/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-06-01-minimax-m3/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-06-01-minimax-m3","date":"2026-06-01","date_precision":"day","short_title":"MiniMax M3: open-weights 428B MoE with 1M context and native multimodality","deck":null,"takeaway":null,"category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"partly","labels":["Partly confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"MiniMax API docs: model release notes","url":"https://platform.minimax.io/docs/release-notes/models","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"platform.minimax.io"},{"n":2,"title":"OpenRouter: MiniMax M3","url":"https://openrouter.ai/minimax/minimax-m3","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"openrouter.ai"},{"n":3,"title":"Fireworks: MiniMax M3 is live","url":"https://fireworks.ai/blog/minimax-m3-launch","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"fireworks.ai"},{"n":4,"title":"DataNorth: MiniMax launches M3","url":"https://datanorth.ai/news/minimax-launches-m3","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"datanorth.ai"}],"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["MiniMax"],"title":"MiniMax M3: open-weights 428B MoE with 1M context and native multimodality","summary":"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)"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["llm","open-weights","china","coding","multimodal"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nMiniMax, 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,\nthen the H3 video model on 2026-07-31 (\"understands creative intent across multimodal context — text, image, video, and audio\").\n\n## Why it matters\n\nM3 made 1M context + native multimodality + frontier-ish coding available as open weights at ~1/20th of Western frontier prices.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-01-08-zhipu-minimax-hong-kong-ipos","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-01-08-zhipu-minimax-hong-kong-ipos/","date":"2026-01-08","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Zhipu AI and MiniMax become first LLM labs to go public (Hong Kong)","deck":null,"takeaway":"Public listings give Chinese labs a capital source independent of US venture money and made them the first pure-play LLM developers with public market valuations.","category":"business","category_label":"Business","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":3,"official":0,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Zhipu AI","MiniMax"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":32,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":62,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":1,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":null}