DeepSeek
Open-weight models known for reasoning and code. DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab that releases large language models with downloadable weights, including general chat models and models trained for step-by-step reasoning. Its largest models use a mixture-of-experts design that needs substantial GPU memory, while distilled smaller versions run on modest hardware. They are used for reasoning-heavy tasks, code and analysis.
When it is the right choice
- You want a reasoning-focused model you can host yourself
- Your tasks benefit from the model working through problems step by step
- You want to test distilled small models for cheaper on-premises inference
- Not ideal when you need short, fast answers at low cost; reasoning output adds tokens and latency
How we use it
- Deploy DeepSeek models on infrastructure you control so no data leaves your account
- Size GPU clusters for the full models, or use distilled versions where they pass your evaluations
- Measure reasoning token usage and latency in production dashboards
- Check the licence and your own policy on model origin before production use
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Is it safe to use DeepSeek with private data?
If you self-host the weights, your data stays on your own infrastructure. Using DeepSeek's hosted API is a different matter, and you should review where it processes data before sending anything sensitive.
Do we need a large GPU cluster?
The full-size models need multiple high-memory GPUs. Distilled versions can run on a single GPU, and we test whether they are good enough for your task first.
Running DeepSeek, or deciding whether to? Tell us what you have; the first consultation is free.
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