MiniMax, a Shanghai AI startup founded in 2022, has introduced a new video-generation model called H3 that the company says can handle text, images, video and audio as inputs. The model is capable of producing videos up to 15 seconds long in 2K resolution with native stereo sound, according to the company.
Beyond generating original clips, MiniMax said H3 can edit pre-existing material and can transfer motion from one video to another when supplied with instructions and reference content in different formats. The company also announced plans to publish H3's model weights within days, enabling users to download and adapt the underlying system.
Releasing model weights is consistent with an open-weight posture more Chinese developers have been adopting. MiniMax framed the move as extending that open approach into video generation, a segment where many widely known models remain proprietary.
MiniMax describes H3 as targeted at commercial applications such as advertising, e-commerce, product design and gaming. The company additionally stated that generating 2K video with H3 would cost less than one-third of comparable mainstream products, and that H3 was designed to operate on several Chinese-made chips amid an industry push to reduce reliance on U.S. semiconductors.
The emergence of H3 comes against a backdrop of intensifying competition among Chinese developers of video models. The company noted that competition accelerated after ByteDance released Seedance 2.0 earlier this year and that the launch of Seedance 2.0 followed Kuaishou's release of Kling 3.0.
MiniMax is part of a cohort of well-funded Chinese startups sometimes referred to as "AI tigers." The company went public in Hong Kong in January, becoming the second in that group to list following Z.AI. Earlier in July, reports indicated MiniMax planned to launch H3 later in the month and that it was developing a 2.7-trillion-parameter language model.
Context and market positioning
MiniMax positions H3 as a commercially oriented video generation tool with cost and hardware compatibility advantages, while adopting an open-weight distribution to encourage customization and downstream development. The release adds another entrant to an increasingly crowded Chinese video-model market where both domestic giants and startups are active.