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DeepSeek

Overview

DeepSeek develops large language models and generative AI services, providing text, table and code generation through websites, applications and APIs. Its services are operated by the Hangzhou-based DeepSeek company.⁠[1]

Its DeepSeek Coder family was trained on project-level code across several model sizes for completion and infilling. The original series used a 16K context window, with training data combining code and Chinese and English natural language.⁠[2]

DeepSeek Harness is an agent tool for everyday work, coding and research, available as a desktop application or a web interface launched from code. Its public preview uses composable plugins to extend tools, skills and the interface.⁠[3]

Contents21 sections
Key facts

Founded in Hangzhou

Liang Wenfeng founded DeepSeek in Hangzhou to develop large AI models. Its origins were connected with the technical work of High-Flyer, which had previously invested in GPU clusters.⁠[4]

DeepSeek LLM Research

The team published research on scaling 7-billion- and 67-billion-parameter DeepSeek LLM models. It described pretraining on two trillion tokens, followed by supervised fine-tuning and direct preference optimization to produce chat models.⁠[5]

Expert Specialization

DeepSeekMoE research divided expert networks more finely and introduced shared experts for common knowledge, reducing redundancy among routed experts. The approach aimed to expand total capacity while controlling computation per use.⁠[6]

DeepSeekMath and GRPO

DeepSeekMath continued training a code model with mathematical material and introduced Group Relative Policy Optimization, or GRPO. The reinforcement-learning method sought to improve mathematical reasoning while reducing memory requirements relative to conventional PPO training.⁠[7]

V2 and Latent Attention

The V2 report described a mixture-of-experts model with 236 billion total parameters, 21 billion activated per token and a 128K context. Multi-head Latent Attention compresses the key-value cache, complementing sparse expert computation to reduce inference resource requirements.⁠[8]

V3 Technical Report

V3 used 671 billion total parameters with 37 billion activated per token, auxiliary-loss-free load balancing and a multi-token prediction objective. The team reported 2.788 million H800 GPU hours for training; that compute figure is not the company’s total research expenditure.⁠[9]

R1 Reinforcement-Learning Research

R1 research demonstrated how reinforcement learning could encourage reasoning behaviors including self-checking, verification and strategy adaptation. It also examined transferring reasoning patterns from large models to smaller ones, with evaluations centered on verifiable mathematics, coding and science tasks.⁠[10]

R1-0528 Update

R1-0528 made model weights available and added JSON output and function calling. DeepSeek described improvements in front-end tasks and fewer hallucinations; those release claims did not guarantee the accuracy of every generated response.⁠[11]

V3.1 Dual Inference Modes

V3.2-Exp Sparse Attention

The experimental V3.2-Exp introduced DeepSeek Sparse Attention on top of V3.1-Terminus. Selective attention aimed to reduce long-context training and inference computation, with the model offered through web, app and API services.⁠[13]

Self-Verification of Proofs

DeepSeekMath-V2 combined proof generation with verification, encouraging models to inspect and repair proofs before finalizing them. The research emphasized that a correct final answer does not ensure rigorous reasoning, extending training toward completeness and reliability of proofs.⁠[14]

V3.2 Thinking with Tools

V3.2 integrated thinking with tool use alongside Speciale, a variant emphasizing complex reasoning. Speciale was offered through a temporary evaluation API without tool calls, scheduled to end on December 15; that announcement did not establish a permanent endpoint.⁠[15]

Engram Conditional Memory

Engram research treated knowledge lookup as a capability complementary to neural computation, using scalable lookup tables for conditional memory. It explored delegating common patterns to memory modules so that the main network could devote more computation to complex reasoning.⁠[16]

OCR 2 Visual Processing

DeepSeek-OCR 2 explored dynamically reordering visual tokens according to image semantics rather than a fixed top-left-to-bottom-right scan. It proposed an encoder with causal reasoning for complex layouts and made code and model weights available.⁠[17]

Privacy Policy Update

The privacy policy described collecting inputs, uploaded files, chat history and device information, with personal data processed and stored in China. It also described model-improvement uses and channels for exercising applicable access, deletion and training opt-out rights.⁠[18]

Anthropic Distillation Allegations

Anthropic accused DeepSeek of extracting Claude capabilities through over 150,000 exchanges involving reasoning and grading tasks. This was the company’s allegation.⁠[19]

V4 Million-Token Preview

The V4 preview offered Pro and Flash variants, both with million-token context and thinking or non-thinking modes. Pro had 1.6 trillion total and 49 billion active parameters; Flash had 284 billion total and 13 billion active parameters, serving different compute and responsiveness requirements.⁠[20]

V4.1-Flash Vision Model

V4.1-Flash introduced native visual understanding in a 552-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model. Its causal encoder–decoder design activated eight billion parameters for input and 16 billion for output, using different computation configurations for input processing and generation.⁠[21]

Version 1017 and Search APIs

V4.1-Flash was upgraded to version 1017 across the official web, app and API services, keeping the calling name and pricing unchanged at that update. DeepSeek reported improved coding and agent-task performance and opened access to its in-house search engine.⁠[22]

Search returns structured search results, while Fetch converts an individual web page into Markdown for agents or retrieval-augmented applications. Both use the same API authentication as the generative models.⁠[23]

Sources

  1. DeepSeek Terms of Use (opens in a new window)
  2. DeepSeek Coder: Let the Code Write Itself (opens in a new window)
  3. DeepSeek Harness | Explore the limits of intelligence (opens in a new window)
  4. 杭州四小龙:闪耀的“东方神秘力量” (opens in a new window) (in Chinese)
  5. DeepSeek LLM: Scaling Open-Source Language Models with Longtermism (opens in a new window)
  6. DeepSeekMoE: Towards Ultimate Expert Specialization in Mixture-of-Experts Language Models (opens in a new window)
  7. DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models (opens in a new window)
  8. DeepSeek-V2: A Strong, Economical, and Efficient Mixture-of-Experts Language Model (opens in a new window)
  9. DeepSeek-V3 Technical Report (opens in a new window)
  10. DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning (opens in a new window)
  11. DeepSeek-R1-0528 Release (opens in a new window)
  12. DeepSeek-V3.1 Release (opens in a new window)
  13. Introducing DeepSeek-V3.2-Exp (opens in a new window)
  14. DeepSeekMath-V2: Towards Self-Verifiable Mathematical Reasoning (opens in a new window)
  15. DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the Frontier of Open Large Language Models (opens in a new window)
  16. Conditional Memory via Scalable Lookup: A New Axis of Sparsity for Large Language Models (opens in a new window)
  17. DeepSeek-OCR 2: Visual Causal Flow (opens in a new window)
  18. DeepSeek Privacy Policy (opens in a new window)
  19. Detecting and preventing distillation attacks (opens in a new window)
  20. DeepSeek-V4 Preview: Entering the Era of Affordable Million-Token Context (opens in a new window)
  21. Introducing DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: smarter, faster, more efficient. (opens in a new window)
  22. Change Log (opens in a new window)
  23. Search & Fetch (opens in a new window)