How Does DeepSeek Plan to Make Money with Low-Cost AI?

DeepSeek is gaining attention for releasing high-performing open AI models at extremely low prices, or even for free.

Its standout edge appears to be efficiency: lower memory use, strong inference performance, and cheaper serving costs.

Analysts say a rumored large fundraising round may be aimed less at immediate monetization and more at building a broader hardware and supply-chain ecosystem in China.

The company’s strategy could reshape how AI models are trained and deployed under chip supply constraints.