DeepSeek

DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab that publishes its models as open weights under the MIT license. It offers a free chat app, a low-cost API with flagship and faster Flash models, and model files anyone can download and run on their own hardware.

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The AIE Angle

Why DeepSeek made the cut

DeepSeek is the lab that proved a frontier-class model could be trained for a fraction of what the big labs spend and then given away. Its models ship under the MIT license, which means a company can download the weights, run them privately, fine-tune them and build products on them with no fee and no usage restrictions. The chat app at deepseek.com is free and competent, the API is among the cheapest available, and the Flash models trade some depth for speed on routine work. The caution is about where your data goes, not the quality of the model. DeepSeek's app and API are operated from China and its privacy policy says data is stored on servers there, which is why several governments have barred the app from official devices. For anything confidential, skip the hosted service and run the weights yourself with vLLM, use a smaller version through Ollama, or go through a Western host such as Fireworks AI or OpenRouter. Used that way, DeepSeek is one of the best arguments for building on open models: you get the capability without the vendor.

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5 Ways To Use It

DeepSeek for business

1
Run a frontier-class model on your own infrastructure under a license that allows commercial use.
2
Cut API spend on high-volume, low-stakes tasks such as classification, extraction and first drafts.
3
Compare DeepSeek's reasoning output against ChatGPT and Claude on the same prompt before standardizing.
4
Fine-tune an open model on your own data without negotiating a license.

Common Questions

DeepSeek FAQ

The questions business professionals most often ask about DeepSeek.

What is DeepSeek?+

DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab that publishes its models as open weights under the MIT license and runs a free chat app and a low-cost API.

Is DeepSeek safe to use for business?+

The hosted app and API store data on servers in China, so keep confidential work off them. The open weights can be run on your own hardware or through a Western host, where your data stays with you.

What does the MIT license allow?+

The MIT license lets you use, modify, fine-tune and sell products built on the model with no fee and no restriction on company size or revenue, as long as the license notice is kept.

What is the difference between the flagship and Flash models?+

The flagship models are the largest and strongest at reasoning and coding. Flash models are smaller and faster, with lower prices, and suit routine tasks where speed matters more than depth.

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