DeepSeek AI

DeepSeek (full name: Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., Ltd.; Chinese: 杭州深度求索人工智能基础技术研究有限公司) is a Chinese large language model (LLM) research and development company headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The company was established in July 2023 as a spin-off from the hedge fund High-Flyer (Ningbo High-Flyer Quantitative Investment Management Partnership), whose co-founder and principal shareholder, Liang Wenfeng, also serves as CEO of DeepSeek. The company is funded exclusively by High-Flyer, with no external venture capital investors.

DeepSeek focuses on AI model research without a direct emphasis on commercialization. It releases its models as open-weight under the MIT License, meaning the weights are publicly available while certain usage restrictions are described in a license addendum. Key products include DeepSeek-V3 (December 2024) and DeepSeek-R1 (January 2025), a reasoning model based on reinforcement learning. On 27 January 2025, the DeepSeek chatbot powered by R1 reached the top position on the list of most-downloaded free applications in the Apple App Store in the United States, triggering sharp declines in technology stocks (Nvidia shares lost approximately 18% of their value in a single day). DeepSeek claims that training the V3 model cost approximately $5.576 million, a fraction of the cost of comparable models developed by Western companies. The company recruits researchers primarily from Chinese academic institutions and employs individuals from outside traditional computer science backgrounds. The models are accessible via API at platform.deepseek.com and as a chatbot at chat.deepseek.com.