A powerful AI model that appeared anonymously and sparked widespread speculation across the developer community has now been linked back to Xiaomi. The model, called Hunter Alpha, had fueled rumors that Chinese startup DeepSeek was quietly testing its next-generation system. The confirmation ends days of industry speculations and offers a clearer look at how AI developers are testing new models in public. It also highlights growing activity among Chinese tech companies developing AI systems designed to handle more complex tasks with less human input.
According to Reuters, Xiaomi revealed that Hunter Alpha is an internal test version of its MiMo-V2-Pro model, developed by its AI team MiMo and led by former DeepSeek researcher Luo Fuli. The model first appeared on OpenRouter on March 11 without attribution, quickly gaining attention for its capabilities and free access.
The company said the model will integrate with several agent frameworks and offer limited free access to developers worldwide.
Reuters noted that the model was labeled a “stealth” release and rapidly climbed platform rankings, surpassing one trillion tokens in usage. Xiaomi later said the system is intended to serve as the core model for AI agents that can perform multi-step tasks with reduced human input.
Before the confirmation by Xiaomi, developers widely speculated that Hunter Alpha was an early version of DeepSeek’s upcoming V4 model. The speculation was driven by similarities in both technical specifications and behavior.
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