# Kimi Linear (48B-A3B)

> Linear-attention hybrid that keeps a transformer backbone but replaces most full-attention layers.

| Property | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Lab | Moonshot AI (China) |
| Released | 2025-10-30 |
| Decoder type | Sparse hybrid |
| Family | Hybrid MoE |
| Scale | 48B total, 3B active (6.3% active) |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Attention | 3:1 Kimi Delta Attention and MLA |
| Layer mix | 7 MLA + 20 Kimi Delta Attention |
| KV cache / token (bf16) | 7.9 KiB (Very low) |
| License | MIT License |

**Key detail:** Uses NoPE in MLA layers, channel-wise KDA gating, and kernel-4 ShortConv preprocessing for Q, K, and V in KDA layers.

## Architecture concepts

- [No Positional Embeddings (NoPE)](https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/concepts/nope.md): Some or all layers drop explicit positional encodings and rely on the causal mask.
- [Multi-Head Latent Attention (MLA)](https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/concepts/mla.md): Keys and values are compressed into a small latent vector that is cached instead of full K/V.
- [Hybrid Attention (Hybrid attention)](https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/concepts/hybrid-attention.md): Mixes cheap linear-attention or state-space layers with a few full-attention layers.
- [Short Convolution (ShortConv)](https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/concepts/shortconv.md): A tiny causal depthwise convolution (kernel ≈ 4) that mixes each channel over the last few tokens.
- [Attention Residuals (AttnRes)](https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/concepts/attention-residuals.md): Learned, attention-style weights over earlier layer outputs replace the plain residual sum.

## Benchmark (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index)

- AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2: total 7.3

## Links

- Architecture diagram: https://sebastianraschka.com/llm-architecture-gallery/images/architectures/kimi-linear-48b-a3b.webp
- View in article: https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com/p/the-big-llm-architecture-comparison#%C2%A7144-kimi-linear-vs-qwen3-next
- config.json: https://huggingface.co/moonshotai/Kimi-Linear-48B-A3B-Base/blob/main/config.json
- Tech report: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.26692
- Source card (source of truth): https://sebastianraschka.com/llm-architecture-gallery/#card-kimi-linear-48b-a3b
- Web page: https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/models/kimi-linear-48b-a3b/
- JSON: https://llm-atlas-7or.pages.dev/api/models/kimi-linear-48b-a3b.json

_Data from Sebastian Raschka's LLM Architecture Gallery (https://sebastianraschka.com/llm-architecture-gallery/). Synced 2026-11-04._