DeepSeek stays mum on next AI model release as technical papers show frontier innovation

Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek continues to keep the world guessing on when its next major release – the much-anticipated updates to its V3 and R1 models – will be launched, according to analysts, amid its recent publication of technical papers.

The papers underscored DeepSeek’s efforts to improve the underlying infrastructure of AI systems in China at a time when geopolitical tensions and domestic production hurdles restricted the country’s access to advanced semiconductors to train new models, according to Zhang Ruiwang, a Beijing-based information systems architect working in the internet sector.

Still, speculation swirled across the global AI community about potential delays in the Hangzhou-based start-up’s launch of its next-generation V4 and R2 models, which would succeed V3, introduced in December 2024, and R1, which was released in January last year.

DeepSeek declined to comment on reports that V4 would be released during the Lunar New Year.

Apart from US restrictions on China’s access to cutting-edge graphics processing units (GPUs) and advanced chipmaking equipment, the world’s AI developers currently face a shortage of memory chips amid high demand for these semiconductors in enterprise data centres.