We explain in depth and in a simple way what DeepSeek is and why this artificial intelligence from China is standing out so much. We also talk about its operation and possibilities.
We are going to explain to you what DeepSeek is, the artificial intelligence chat created by the company of the same name. It is an AI that at the beginning of 2025 is attracting a lot of attention, and that even in mobile application stores has already managed to match and even surpass ChatGPT in downloads. And if that were not enough, in performance and reasoning tests it has also matched them with its R1 model.
In recent months we have talked a lot about this company and its models, and it seems that we are going to continue doing so. Especially because they are open source, which allows it to be more accessible to everyone, and because it shows how much China is advancing in artificial intelligence technologies.
DeepSeek is the name of a company from China specialized in artificial intelligence. It is also the name of their AI chatbot, an alternative to Copilot, Gemini and the like. So you can hear and read mentions of DeepSeek referring to both of these things.
In this article we are going to focus on the artificial intelligence chatbot, which is a Large Language Model (LLM), created to help with software development, natural language processing and business automation.
DeepSeek stands out for being open source. This means that anyone can see how it works internally, it is completely transparent, and anyone can install this AI locally or use it freely. A developer or researcher can download it from GitHub and modify it for various scenarios, including some commercial ones.
In addition, the fact that it is available and its code is open also means that any of us can download it and run it on our own computer. This may make it go slower, but it allows everything you write and interact with to stay on your computer, and the Chinese company cannot access it. Come on, everything stays on your PC. This is in complete contrast to the secrecy and lack of freedom of private models.
There is often a false perception that one of the things in favor of the private and opaque code of most developers is that the quality of their products is superior. However, DeepSeek is proof that open source can match and even surpass these companies in some aspects.
ChatGPT vs Deepseek :
Another of DeepSeek’s main features is that its native chatbot, the one on its official website, is completely free and does not require any subscription to use its most advanced model. In addition, you can use DeepSeek in Spanish just by speaking to it in this language.
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If we compare it to ChatGPT by asking the same questions, DeepSeek can be a little more concise when answering, it goes more to the point. However, it has the same flexibility as other models, and you can ask it to explain things more broadly or to adapt them to you.
Two AI models at the forefront
DeepSeek has been the talk of the town in late 2024 and early 2025 for two specific AI models. First is DeepSeek V3, a large-scale LLM model that outperforms most AI, and also outperforms some proprietary ones. In tests such as programming, this model managed to outperform Llama 3.1 405B, GPT-4o, and Qwen 2.5 72B, although all of them have far fewer parameters and that can influence performance and comparisons.
But what has really surprised us about this model is that it “only” needed 2.788 billion hours of training. And then there is the issue of the cost of this training. It is said that it cost only $5.5 million compared to the $80 million that models such as OpenAI’s cost. However, some analysts indicate that the real figure of the Chinese company is not known, so we cannot confirm that these claims are true.
What does seem cheaper is the price of internal use, that of tokens. This is a difficult concept to explain. AI works with tokens, which are like tokens of use that you pay for. The price of 1 million tokens of the model that reasons is 55 cents, while OpenAI’s model 01 charges 15 dollars. In other words, it is much cheaper to use.
The other big model has been DeepSeek R1, which is specialized in reasoning, and has been able to reach or surpass the performance of OpenAI’s most advanced models in key mathematics and programming tests. With it, it is the first time that a free and open source Chinese model matches the Western leaders, breaking the monopoly of Silicon Valley.
To give you some figures, this R1 model has cost between 90% and 95% less to develop than its competitors, and has 671 billion parameters. In addition, in mathematical tests MATH-500 has achieved 97.3% success, compared to 96.4% for OpenAI.
However, there is a somewhat controversial point that should be explained, and that is the possible censorship of the model. The DeepSeek chatbot, like Gemini or ChatGPT, is also subject to the values of the country where it has been developed. In this case it has been developed in China, and it adapts to its regulation, having to “embodied fundamental socialist values.” For example, this means that it does not answer sensitive questions about politics and geopolitics, such as those about Tiananmen or the autonomy of Taiwan.
However, this censorship is not at the level of the model, but only at the level of the online chatbot that you can access for free. So, if you build the model on your own computer, you won’t have these limitations, nor will the AI align itself with the ideology of the Party that governs China.
How DeepSeek works ?
DeepSeek has been developed using pure reinforcement learning, without previously labeled data. This is a technical feat that until now was considered impossible, and it opens new doors to the training of this type of system.
This reinforcement learning allows the model to be able to learn by itself through trial and error, just as you can learn to ride a bike or perform certain tasks. This makes the initial result more erratic and imprecise, but the model itself discovers and develops unique reasoning strategies to continue improving.
Once this training was done, DeepSeek refined the model by combining it with other supervised training to polish it and create the final version of R1, which maintains this component but adds consistency and polish.
For the user, its operation is the same as that of other models. You have a home screen with a writing field and various operating options, and then when it comes to viewing the results you have a left column with a DeepSeek history with all your chats.
To use it you have to write a question in natural language, just like you would with a question. Then, DeepSeek will analyze the words of your question to find the result, and then it will search the database with which it was trained or the Internet to obtain data with which to compose an answer also in natural language.
Thanks to the way it has been created, this model can understand complex contexts of very long and elaborate questions. In addition, it can also learn and improve. Its application can be used for free online or by downloading its mobile app, and it does not have any fee.
What you can do with DeepSeek or How to use Deepseek ?
With this AI model you can do practically the same as with other models. You can ask it all kinds of questions, and it will answer in real time. You can ask it about famous people, places, you can ask it the meaning of things, and everything else you can think of.
It can also be used to explain complex topics in a simple way, as long as you ask it to do so. You can also send it documents so it can extract key information about them, and ask it questions related to their content.
It is used for programming, allowing you to write or debug code, as well as to solve mathematical problems. In addition, if you are a content creator, you can ask it to generate ideas, texts, compose poetry, or create templates or structures for articles. It can also review and correct texts.
How to use Deepseek ?
In the box where you write your prompt or question, you have three buttons. The paperclip button is for attaching files. But you also have the DeepThink R1 button to make the AI ”think” about what it has answered you before or in your context, and give you a reasoned answer. And then, the Search button is used to obtain information from the Internet, indicating the sources before the answer.
Then, with each answer you get, you have buttons to copy the text, two buttons to rate it positively or negatively depending on the quality of the answer, and another to reload the answer and have it regenerate from scratch based on your own prompt.
