🤖 DeepSeek AI: What It Is, Who’s Behind It & Why It’s Making Waves in 2025

Artificial intelligence is evolving fast, and one of the breakout names causing buzz lately is DeepSeek. It’s becoming known as a lean, high-performance AI startup from China that competes with giants like OpenAI—but at much lower cost. Let’s break down everything you need to know.

🧑‍💼 Founder & Background

• Liang Wenfeng is the founder & CEO of DeepSeek. He was born in 1985 in Guangdong, China. Wikipedia+2Business Today+2

• Education: He studied at Zhejiang University, earning a BEng in Electronic Information Engineering in 2007, and a Master’s in Information & Communication Engineering in 2010. Wikipedia+2biography.com.co+2

• Before DeepSeek, Liang co-founded a quantitative hedge fund called High-Flyer (2015), which applied AI/ML techniques to finance. That fund helped accumulate financial resources and technical talent, which later supported DeepSeek. Business Today+2ai-supremacy.com+2

🛠️ Why DeepSeek Was Created & What Makes It Different

• Launched in 2023 as a spin-off (or research‐intensive branch) from High-Flyer. The Financial Express+2Business Today+2

• Goal: Build powerful large language models (LLMs) and reasoning AI that are cost‐efficient, open-source (or more accessible), and competitive. ai-supremacy.com+2Entrepreneur+2

• Because Liang had experience with AI/ML models and finance, plus the computational infrastructure (GPUs etc.), DeepSeek was able to target efficiency and scale without as high budgets as some Western counterparts. Entrepreneur+1

💵 Cost & Pricing: How Much DeepSeek Costs

• Development / training cost: One public estimate says DeepSeek’s V3 (or one of its major models) cost under $6 million to train. This is far less than the hundreds of millions some similar AI models cost. Entrepreneur+2The Financial Express+2

• API Pricing: DeepSeek offers multiple models with token‐based pricing. For example:
  • Standard model “deepseek-chat”: ~$0.27 per million input tokens, ~$1.10 per million output tokens. Chat Deep Ai+2Tekpon+2
  • More advanced model “deepseek-reasoner” (e.g. R1): ~$0.55 per million input tokens, and ~$2.19 per million output tokens. Chat Deep Ai+2Tekpon+2

• Discounts / off-peak pricing: DeepSeek introduced discounted rates during “off-peak” hours in China, up to 75% cheaper for some models in those time windows. Reuters+1

🔍 Studies, Strengths & Weaknesses

• Studies / Research:
  • A multinational survey study (India, UK, USA) looked at how users perceive DeepSeek for healthcare usage — trust, perceived usefulness, risk & transparency were key factors. arXiv
  • Another comparative study focused on mathematical reasoning of DeepSeek’s models vs other LLMs. DeepSeek-R1 reportedly performed very well in some benchmarks. arXiv

• Strengths:
  • Cost efficiency vs many competitors. Reuters+3Reddit+3Chat Deep Ai+3
  • Doing well in benchmarks especially for reasoning, math, etc. arXiv+1
  • Open-source / or more open access mindset which helps adoption globally. Business Today

• Weaknesses / Risks:
  • Some reports of “information suppression” or censorship in responses to certain sensitive prompts. arXiv
  • Not all features / models are free — heavy usage can get expensive.
  • Model performance in creative writing or the most nuanced tasks may lag behind some closed-source giants.

🌍 User Base & Earnings Potential

• DeepSeek has gained popularity especially among developers, researchers, and AI enthusiasts globally who want cheaper but capable alternatives. ai-supremacy.com+2Reddit+2

• As for earnings / revenue estimates: One report claims that if all users paid, DeepSeek’s models could have over 500% profit margin. For example, daily running cost (for inference) vs possible revenue numbers show that DeepSeek could generate $200+ million/year under ideal monetization. Business Insider

🚀 Where DeepSeek Seems to Be Headed Next

• Focus on reasoning models and expanding context window (ability to handle longer inputs).

• Improving performance vs cost tradeoffs.

• More API integrations, possibly better UI tools.

• Enhancing trust, transparency, especially for healthcare / sensitive domains.

• Off-peak pricing, global expansion beyond China, targeting developers internationally.