DeepSeek (Chinese: 深度求索; pinyin: Shēndù Qiúsuǒ) is a Chinese artificial intelligence company with nearly 200 employees that develops open-source large language models (LLMs). Based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, it is owned and solely funded by Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer, whose co-founder, Liang Wenfeng, established the company in 2023 and serves as its CEO.

The DeepSeek-R1 model provides responses comparable to other contemporary LLMs, such OpenAI's GPT-4o and o1,[1] despite being trained at a significantly lower cost—stated at US$6 million compared to $100 million for OpenAI's GPT-4 in 2023[2]—and requiring a tenth of the computing power of a comparable LLM.[2][3][4][5] DeepSeek's A.I. models were developed amid United States sanctions on China for Nvidia chips, which were intended to restrict the country's ability to develop advanced A.I. systems.[6][7]