Artificial Intelligence (AI) coding company, Cursor, has recently launched a new model, Composer 2, a development that the company describes as offering “frontier-level coding intelligence”. This exciting development comes from a company that successfully raised $2.3 billion last fall and now boasts an impressive valuation of $29.3 billion.
Controversy Surrounding the Composer 2 Model
However, not long after the announcement of this revolutionary model, controversy started brewing in the tech community. An AI researcher, identified as Fynn, made claims that the touted Composer 2 model was not entirely an original piece of work. They presented evidence suggesting that the model had its roots in Kimi, an open-source AI model developed by Moonshot AI, a Chinese developer.
This was a surprising revelation, especially since Cursor, a well-funded American startup, made no mention of Moonshot AI or Kimi in its official announcement of the Composer 2 model. The company, which has reportedly surpassed $2 billion in annualized revenue, was quick to address these allegations.
Cursor’s Response to the Allegations
Lee Robinson, the Vice President of Developer Education at Cursor, acknowledged that Composer 2 started from an open-source foundation. However, he clarified that only about a quarter of the computation spent on the final model came from the base. The rest, he stated, emerged from Cursor’s own training. According to Robinson, this resulted in Composer 2’s performance on various criteria being “very different” from Kimi’s.
Robinson also reassured the tech community that Cursor’s use of Kimi was within the terms of its license. This was confirmed by the Kimi account during a Techcrunch event held in San Francisco, California from October 13-15, 2026.
Cursor’s Commitment to Transparency
“We are proud to see Kimi-k2.5 forming the basis,” the Kimi account stated. “Seeing our model integrated effectively through ongoing pre-training and high-computing RL training from Cursor is the open model ecosystem we love to support.”
However, the question remains why Cursor didn’t acknowledge Kimi from the onset? In response to this, Cursor co-founder Aman Sanger admitted that it was a mistake not to mention the Kimi base in their blog initially. He assured that they would correct this for the next model.
Despite the controversy, it is noteworthy to observe that the collaboration and integration of AI models like Kimi-k2.5 and Composer 2 can lead to groundbreaking technological advancements. The tech community eagerly waits to see how this will shape the future of artificial intelligence coding.
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