DeepSeek

DeepSeek-R1 and reinforcement learning reshape foundation model economics

DeepSeek released R1, an open-weight reasoning model matching OpenAI's o1 performance at 1/27th the API cost ($2.19 vs. $60 per million tokens), trained on under $6M compute using algorithmic optimization rather than expensive hardware scaling. Commerce practitioners can now access advanced reasoning capabilities at commodity prices, unlocking new application opportunities in customer service, document analysis, and problem-solving workflows previously cost-prohibitive.