(Bloomberg) -- DeepSeek is offering discounts of up to 75% during off-peak hours to reduce spikes in demand for its application programming interface.
Starting Wednesday, accessing the DeepSeek V3 model will cost half its usual price from 12:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Beijing time, while the R1 model that underpins the company’s eponymous chatbot will be reduced in price by three quarters.
The move comes as the Hangzhou-based artificial intelligence startup grapples with runaway interest and demand from users and developers adopting its technology. Competitors from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Perplexity AI have started using DeepSeek’s models, joining state entities across China, including departments in the Hong Kong government.
DeepSeek on Tuesday reopened top-ups for credits to access its API, though it had cautioned that capacity would be constrained during daytime.
DeepSeek’s reasoning chatbot has upended common preconceptions about the required cost to build robust AI models since its release on Jan. 20. It’s been lauded as a rival to OpenAI while requiring a fraction of the development cost. That’s sparked a rally in Chinese tech and internet stocks, as investors bet on more upside for those companies even while they’re constrained by chip trade curbs from Washington.
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