Update June 2026: Since May 2026, DeepSeek V4-Flash and V4-Pro are also available in Microsoft Foundry – making the V4 generation usable on a hyperscaler with EU data residency for the first time. On AWS Bedrock, EU regions continue to offer V3.1, V3.2 and R1; V4-Pro typically rolls out to US regions first. innFactory AI Consulting from Germany advises on all deployment options.
Update April 2026: On 24 April 2026, DeepSeek released the V4 generation. V4-Flash (284B) and V4-Pro (1.6T parameters) offer 1M token context via a new hybrid attention mechanism (Compressed Sparse Attention + Heavily Compressed Attention). Both models are available as open weights on HuggingFace.
DeepSeek V4 - The New Generation (April 2026)
DeepSeek has made a significant leap with the V4 generation:
V4-Flash
- 284B parameters total, ~13B active (MoE)
- 1M token context window
- Thinking and non-thinking mode
- API:
deepseek-v4-flash - Open weights on HuggingFace
V4-Pro
- 1.6 trillion parameters total, ~49B active (MoE)
- 1M token context window – only 27% of the FLOPs and 10% of the KV cache compared to V3.2
- Thinking and non-thinking mode
- API:
deepseek-v4-pro - 80.6% SWE-Bench (per DeepSeek)
Note: The previous API names
deepseek-chatanddeepseek-reasonerwill be deprecated on July 24, 2026 and redirected to V4-Flash.
Key Strengths
Open Source & Licensing
DeepSeek offers full transparency:
- Public Weights: Fully available on GitHub/Hugging Face
- Licensing: R1 under MIT, V3 under a separate Model Agreement
- Community: Active development
- Customizable: Fine-tuning and modifications possible
MoE Architecture
DeepSeek uses innovative Mixture-of-Experts:
- 671B parameters total, but only 37B active per request
- Efficient: High performance with reduced resource requirements
- Multihead Latent Attention: New attention mechanism
Reasoning Capabilities (R1)
DeepSeek-R1 shows transparent thinking processes:
- Chain-of-thought is made visible
- Particularly strong in mathematics and logic
- Comparable to OpenAI o1
EU Availability (Update February 2026)
DeepSeek is now available through all three major cloud providers in EU regions:
AWS Bedrock
- Regions: Frankfurt (eu-central-1), Ireland (eu-west-1)
- Models: DeepSeek-V3.1, V3.2
- Advantage: Serverless, immediate availability
Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry)
- Regions: West Europe, Sweden Central
- Models: V3, R1, V4-Flash and V4-Pro (since May 2026)
- Advantage: Azure ecosystem integration, now with the V4 generation
Google Vertex AI
- Regions: Frankfurt (europe-west3), Netherlands (europe-west4)
- Models: V3.2, R1
- Advantage: Vertex AI Model Garden
Self-Hosting
Still available for maximum control and full GDPR compliance.
Important Notes
Data Privacy Considerations
Update February 2026: With availability on AWS Bedrock, Azure AI, and Google Vertex AI in EU regions, enterprises can now use DeepSeek GDPR-compliant in the cloud!
- Cloud Hosting (EU): Data remains in EU regions with AWS/Azure/Google
- Direct API: DeepSeek servers in China (caution with sensitive data)
- Self-Hosting: Still the option with maximum control
For Enterprises: Cloud providers offer EU data residency with full compliance. Self-hosting remains an alternative for highest security requirements.
Self-Hosting as a Solution
The open-source model can be operated in your own infrastructure:
- All data remains under your control
- No dependency on external APIs
- Full GDPR compliance possible
- Hardware requirements: Multiple high-end GPUs (A100/H100)
Price-Performance
DeepSeek offers excellent value:
- API: Very affordable prices (approx. 90% cheaper than GPT-4)
- Self-Hosting: Free to use (only hardware costs)
- No License Fees: R1 under MIT, V3 under Model Agreement
Our Recommendation
DeepSeek is technically impressive and reaches frontier-level performance in reasoning and coding. With the new EU availability on AWS, Azure, and Google, enterprises can now use DeepSeek GDPR-compliant.
For most enterprises, we recommend:
- Cloud Option: DeepSeek-V4-Flash via the API or EU cloud providers - affordable, powerful, 1M context
- Self-Hosting: DeepSeek-V4-Flash or V3.2 for maximum control and customizability
The choice depends on your requirements for control, compliance, and technical resources.