AitopkitShanghai-based MiniMax has released M3.1 Flash, an updated version of its flagship AI model, first reported by Reuters on Monday, October 19, 2026. The company says the refreshed model delivers a "generational" jump in agentic tasks, programming, Computer Use and cybersecurity work, while online inference speed has nearly tripled and the cost of running the model has dropped by 70 percent.
The model is available through three channels: the MiniMax API, the company's M Plan subscription tier, and MiniMax Code, its coding-focused product line. On pricing, China Fund News reported API prices of approximately one yuan per million input tokens and four yuan per million output tokens — though pricing changes often, so check the official MiniMax pricing page before committing.
The timing is no accident. MiniMax is pushing M3.1 Flash into the market at the same moment that Gemini 4 Argon, GPT 6.1 Sol and Claude Opus 5.5 are all fighting for enterprise coding and agent workloads. Chinese model makers are explicitly positioning themselves as the low-cost alternative for high-volume agentic use cases — and this release continues the AI price war that has been reshaping the market all year. MiniMax has also hinted that a higher-end Pro version may follow.
The usual caveat applies: the speed, benchmark and cost improvements are MiniMax's own claims and have not yet been verified by independent evaluation. Still, for developers shopping for fast, cheap models for AI coding assistants and autonomous agents, M3.1 Flash is now the latest low-cost contender to watch.