Overview
DeepSeek is a phenomenal product in the domestic AI field, developed by Hangzhou DeepSeek Company. The DeepSeek-R1 reasoning model has reached a level comparable to OpenAI o1 in mathematics, programming, and logical reasoning, while costing only 1/10 of it, earning it the nickname "price butcher of the AI industry."
**2026/06/16 Historic Financing**: DeepSeek completed its **first external financing round of approximately $7 billion (about RMB 500 billion)**, with a post-investment valuation exceeding **$50 billion (over RMB 3300 billion)**—this is the **largest single financing round** for a Chinese AI startup to date, and marks the official opening of this large model company, previously relying on its own funds, to external capital. The investor lineup is impressive: **Founder Liang Wenfeng personally contributed about RMB 20 billion (largest single investor), Tencent about RMB 10 billion, CATL system about RMB 5 billion, JD.com/NetEase/IDG each about RMB 3 billion**, with the National AI Fund also participating.
**2026/05/22 Model Update**: DeepSeek V4-Pro announced a **permanent price reduction of 75%**—after 5/31, input is $0.435/million tokens, output is $0.87/million tokens, with cache hits further reduced by 90%, **about 98% cheaper than GPT-5.5**. The model has **1.6 trillion parameters / 49 billion activated per inference**, currently the largest open-weight model. Simultaneously, the **Harness team** (led personally by Liang Wenfeng) was formed to tackle Code agents, benchmarking against Claude Code, all running on **Huawei Ascend** chips.
DeepSeek offers completely free web chat, mobile app, and the industry's lowest-priced API service. Its open-source strategy (fully open model weights) has won widespread acclaim from the global developer community.
Key Features
- New $50 Billion Valuation Record: Completed first ~$7 billion financing round on 2026/6/16 with a post-investment valuation of $50 billion, the largest single financing round in Chinese AI startup history
- Top-Tier Reasoning Ability: DeepSeek V4-Pro / R1 series achieves international top-tier performance in tasks like mathematical reasoning, logical analysis, and programming, supporting full chain-of-thought display
- Ultra-Low Cost API: After V4-Pro's permanent 75% price reduction, API prices are about 98% cheaper than GPT-5.5, enabling SMEs and individual developers to access top-tier AI capabilities
- Fully Open Source: V4-Pro / R1 model weights and training methods are fully public, supporting local deployment and secondary development, friendly for academic research
- Deep Thinking Mode: R1 / V4-Pro reasoning mode can display the complete thinking process, helping users understand reasoning logic and verify result accuracy
- Outstanding Coding Ability: Harness team focuses on Code agents (benchmarked against Claude Code), consistently leading in programming benchmarks
- Long Context Support: V4-Pro supports 128K-256K context, capable of processing long documents and entire codebases
- Domestic Computing Power Foundation: Fully committed to Huawei Ascend, forming a "computing power + electricity + cloud" domestic ecosystem closed loop with CATL (energy storage/data center power) and Tencent (cloud)
Use Cases
- Academic research and education scenarios requiring logical reasoning, such as mathematics and physics
- Developers and startups needing cost-effective API integration
- Technical teams and privacy-sensitive users wanting to deploy AI models locally
- Programming learning and code development assistance
- Professionals needing to see AI reasoning processes and verify answer reliability
- Enterprise-level integration with shareholder ecosystems like Tencent/JD.com/NetEase
Pros
- Extremely high cost-performance: free chat + industry's lowest API prices, significantly reducing AI usage costs
- World-class reasoning ability: V4-Pro / R1 achieves international top-tier performance in mathematics and programming
- Fully open source: models can be deployed locally, ensuring data privacy
- Transparent chain of thought: complete reasoning process viewable, results verifiable
- Luxury shareholder lineup (Liang Wenfeng + Tencent + CATL + JD.com + NetEase + IDG + National AI Fund) empowering the ecosystem
- Full-stack domestic route (Huawei Ascend + domestic capital), supply chain self-controllable
Pricing
DeepSeek web version and mobile app are completely free to use. The current main API is V4-Pro: after 5/31, input is approximately ¥3.1/million tokens, output approximately ¥6.2/million tokens (after permanent 75% price reduction), with cache hits further reduced by 90%. The R1 reasoning model remains available at a slightly higher price. Supports pay-as-you-go billing with no minimum spend.
Summary
DeepSeek is currently the "king of cost-performance"—free chat, ultra-low price API, open source and deployable, achieving world-class levels in reasoning and programming. In June 2026, it completed the largest single financing round in Chinese AI history with ~$7 billion (about RMB 50 billion), with a valuation exceeding $50 billion, officially transitioning from "self-funded" to a "capital + national team + top shareholders" combination; simultaneously, V4-Pro permanently reduced prices by 75% (98% cheaper than GPT-5.5) + the Harness team focuses on Code agents (benchmarked against Claude Code). If you are a developer or have a strong need for reasoning capabilities, DeepSeek is a must-choose. For daily use, it is recommended to pair with Doubao or Kimi to cover lightweight conversation and long text scenarios respectively.