MiniMax published the 33-billion-parameter weights for its H3 video model to Hugging Face on Aug. 3, and by the same afternoon Artificial Analysis had it ranked first in video editing, second in text-to-video, and third in image-to-video, the first open-weight system to lead any category in that arena. The community license bars local deployment in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.

The four excluded jurisdictions cover most of the Western developer economy MiniMax would ordinarily be courting. Ryan Lee, MiniMax’s head of developer relations, attributed the carve-out to ongoing copyright litigation in a public statement on KuCoin. Discovery sued MiniMax and its U.S.-facing operator Nanonoble Pte. Ltd. on Sept. 16, 2025, alleging that the Hailuo platform trained on copyrighted characters; Judge Stanley Blumenfeld of the Central District of California denied the motion to dismiss on May 26, 2026.

The release is also partial. H3 generates 4- to 15-second clips and accepts up to nine reference images, three video clips, and three audio clips per prompt, but the hosted H3-Context-IR prompt processor and the H3-Regenerate-2K resolution component are withheld. Local ComfyUI deployment tops out at 768p. Commercial users clearing $20 million in annual revenue need prior written authorization and must display “MiniMax H3” in their UI.

What’s on offer is a benchmark-leading model whose best components stay on MiniMax’s servers, released under terms that route Western commercial demand back through the hosted product. MiniMax listed in Hong Kong under 00100.HK on Jan. 9, 2026. Openness, priced as a funnel.

Sources