What is DeepSeek?
A Chinese AI lab that shook the industry by matching top models at much lower cost — and releasing open-weight versions.
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab known for building high-performing models at a fraction of the compute cost of Western rivals, and for releasing open-weight models.
The full picture
DeepSeek rattled the AI world by showing that competitive frontier-level models could be trained far more cheaply than assumed, and by releasing capable open-weight models that anyone can run. Its V3 and R1 models drew rare praise from Western engineers.
Backed by major Chinese investors and optimised to run on domestically available chips, DeepSeek represents a credible, cost-efficient challenger to US AI dominance. For businesses, it widens the field of viable model providers and intensifies price pressure across the market — though data-governance and geopolitical considerations factor into adoption.
📌 Real business example
A cost-conscious team benchmarks an open-weight DeepSeek model against a pricier closed API for a coding task, finding it strong enough to handle the bulk of work at a fraction of the cost.
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Common questions
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