DeepSeek is a Chinese AI company that publishes powerful language models mostly as open weights and additionally offers them through its own, very inexpensive API. The current reference is the V4 generation (released 24 April 2026) with 1 million tokens of context: DeepSeek V4.1-Flash (deepseek-flash, 10 September 2026) as a small, fast and natively multimodal model, and DeepSeek V4-Pro (deepseek-v4-pro, GA build 0813) for demanding agentic and coding workflows. Predecessors such as V3.2, V3.1 and R1 remain relevant mainly via hyperscalers and self-hosting.
For enterprises in the DACH region, the hurdle is less model performance than data residency: the direct API processes data in China, and the hyperscalers offer genuine EU data residency for DeepSeek only in a few configurations. As an AI consultancy in Rosenheim, Germany, we advise on all deployment options, from self-hosting to integration via CompanyGPT. This overview reflects the state as of October 2026.
Current models at a glance
| Model | API ID | Release | Context | Price (input cache miss / output, peak) | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1-Flash | deepseek-flash | 10 Sep 2026 | 1M | USD 0.30 / 1.20 | Low-cost all-rounder, text and image |
| DeepSeek V4-Pro (0813, GA) | deepseek-v4-pro | 13 Aug 2026 | 1M | USD 1.32 / 3.96 | Agents, coding, complex reasoning |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-0731 | deepseek-v4-flash (routes to V4.1-Flash) | 31 Jul 2026 | 1M | superseded | Superseded by V4.1-Flash |
| DeepSeek V4-Flash-Vision-Exp | deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp (routes to V4.1-Flash) | 21 Aug 2026 | 1M | superseded | Experimental, superseded by V4.1-Flash |
| DeepSeek V3.2 / V3.2-Speciale | – | December 2025 | – | – | Hyperscalers (Bedrock, Foundry, Google) |
DeepSeek V4.1-Flash
Per DeepSeek’s changelog, on 10 September 2026 the API model name deepseek-flash was updated to DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash – described as the “smallest model in our new architecture family, with native multimodal visual understanding”. Per DeepSeek, the new architecture is designed for “faster inference, higher throughput, and scaling to larger models”. V4.1-Flash replaces V4-Flash (including build 0731) and V4-Flash-Vision-Exp; the old model names deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp temporarily keep routing to V4.1-Flash per DeepSeek. Image input works via Base64, URL or the Files API; an image is converted to at most 384 tokens depending on its dimensions. DeepSeek has not published detailed benchmark figures for V4.1-Flash in the documentation available to us, and open weights are not confirmed.
DeepSeek V4-Pro
V4-Pro (deepseek-v4-pro, listed in the documentation as DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813) was released as a preview on 24 April 2026 and reached general availability on 13 August 2026 in the app, web (“Expert Mode”) and API. The model has 1.6 trillion parameters (about 49B active, MoE) and 1M tokens of context at only 27% of the FLOPs and 10% of the KV cache compared with V3.2. Reasoning effort can be set in three levels: low for simple tasks, high for everyday agent work, max for complex tasks; this also applies to Flash. The Responses API format is supported natively (adapted for Codex). Benchmarks per DeepSeek: Terminal-Bench 2.1 87.9, NL2Repo 61.5, DeepSWE 62.7, HLE 42.7 (without tools) / 60.0 (with tools); in April DeepSeek cited 80.6% on SWE-Bench. DeepSeek has confirmed it will continue the V4-Pro API beyond 14 September 2026 on unchanged terms. Open weights for the GA build 0813 are not confirmed by DeepSeek.
DeepSeek V4-Flash (April base, 0731, Vision-Exp)
The April release V4-Flash (284B parameters, about 13B active, MoE, 1M context, thinking and non-thinking mode) is available as open weights under the MIT license on Hugging Face and is the basis for self-hosting. On 31 July 2026 the API was updated to V4-Flash-0731 (per DeepSeek only re-post-trained; Terminal-Bench 2.1 82.7, NL2Repo 54.2, DeepSWE 54.4, DSBench-Hard 59.6); on 21 August 2026 the experimental V4-Flash-Vision-Exp followed (Terminal-Bench 2.1 83.9, NL2Repo 57.7, DeepSWE 59.3, DSBench-Hard 63.6, Chartography 64.3). Both builds have been superseded by V4.1-Flash since 10 September 2026. DeepSeek’s changelog does not say whether the weights of the API builds were published on Hugging Face.
Pricing
Since 16 August 2026 (16:00 UTC), DeepSeek bills by time of day. Peak time is Monday to Friday 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC (CEST: 03:00–06:00 and 08:00–12:00); all other hours are off-peak with a 50% discount.
| Model | Cache hit | Cache miss (input) | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| V4.1-Flash – peak | USD 0.006 | USD 0.30 | USD 1.20 |
| V4.1-Flash – off-peak | USD 0.003 | USD 0.15 | USD 0.60 |
| V4-Pro – peak | USD 0.044 | USD 1.32 | USD 3.96 |
| V4-Pro – off-peak | USD 0.022 | USD 0.66 | USD 1.98 |
All figures in USD per 1M tokens, prices per provider, as of October 2026. With the switch to V4.1-Flash, Flash prices have fallen compared with V4-Flash. For batch and agent workloads, shifting to off-peak is worthwhile – from a European perspective that means afternoon, evening and night. V4-Pro costs roughly three times as much as V4.1-Flash.
Key strengths
- Open source and licensing: Weights are publicly available on GitHub and Hugging Face; R1 and the V4-Flash repository are MIT-licensed, V3 is under a separate Model Agreement. Fine-tuning and customization are possible.
- MoE architecture: Mixture-of-Experts with only a fraction of parameters active (V4-Flash about 13B of 284B, V4-Pro about 49B of 1.6T; V3/R1: 37B of 671B), with Multihead Latent Attention and, in V4, hybrid attention (Compressed Sparse Attention + Heavily Compressed Attention).
- Reasoning (R1): DeepSeek-R1 makes chain-of-thought visible, is strong in mathematics and logic and is positioned as comparable to OpenAI o1.
- Languages: 50+ languages, best quality in English and Chinese, good quality in German.
EU availability and GDPR
Genuine EU data residency for DeepSeek exists at the three major hyperscalers only in a few configurations. The builds 0731, 0813 and V4.1-Flash initially concern the direct DeepSeek API; to our knowledge AWS, Microsoft and Google have not confirmed whether and when their deployments will follow.
AWS Bedrock
- Regions (In-Region): Stockholm (eu-north-1) and London (eu-west-2) per the Bedrock model cards – Frankfurt (eu-central-1) and Ireland (eu-west-1) are not listed for DeepSeek. Stockholm is in the EU, London in the United Kingdom (outside the EU).
- Models: DeepSeek-V3.1 (
deepseek.v3-v1:0ordeepseek.v3.1) and V3.2 (deepseek.v3.2), each In-Region only, no geo or global routing. - DeepSeek-R1: only in the US (us-east-1, us-east-2, us-west-2) via the “US” geo region, no EU region.
Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry)
- Global Standard (worldwide processing, no data residency guarantee): DeepSeek-V3.2, V3.2-Speciale, V4-Flash, V4-Flash-0731 (preview) and V4-Pro. Resources can also be created in European regions, but per Microsoft inference can run in any Azure region where the model is deployed.
- Data Zone Standard EU (processing exclusively in EU member states): per the region availability table only DeepSeek-V4-Flash – not V4-Pro, V3.2 or V3.2-Speciale. Whether Microsoft will update to V4.1-Flash is not confirmed.
- Standard/Regional (strict single region): not available for DeepSeek models per Microsoft.
- Older entries for “V3” and “R1” as models sold directly by Azure no longer appear in the “Foundry Models sold by Azure” overview; check this if your deployment relies on them.
Google Cloud (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, formerly Vertex AI)
- Regions: per Google’s region overview, DeepSeek-V3.1, DeepSeek-R1 (0528) and DeepSeek-OCR are available exclusively in us-central1 (US); DeepSeek-V3.2 is in the “global” region (worldwide processing).
- No EU region: Neither Frankfurt (europe-west3) nor the Netherlands (europe-west4) is listed for DeepSeek.
Direct API and self-hosting
- Direct API: DeepSeek servers in China – caution with sensitive or personal data.
- Self-hosting: The open-source model can run in your own infrastructure: all data stays under your control, no dependency on external APIs, full GDPR compliance possible. This requires several high-end GPUs (A100/H100). Given the limited hyperscaler options, this is the most reliable path to genuine EU data residency.
Before any decision, check the specific model and the specific deployment type: “available in the EU” does not automatically mean that processing is limited to the EU.
Model lifecycle
- The API names
deepseek-chatanddeepseek-reasonerwere discontinued on 24 July 2026. The pricing overview listsdeepseek-flash(serving V4.1-Flash) anddeepseek-v4-pro. - V4-Flash-0731 and V4-Flash-Vision-Exp were withdrawn on 10 September 2026; their old API names temporarily route to V4.1-Flash.
- V4-Flash and V4-Pro have been available in Microsoft Foundry since May 2026 (see above); on AWS Bedrock, V3.1 and V3.2 remain available in EU regions.
- Peak/off-peak pricing has applied since 16 August 2026.
Our recommendation
DeepSeek is technically impressive and, per the vendor, delivers strong results in reasoning, coding and agent tasks. For cloud use, look closely: “usable in Europe” does not mean “data stays in the EU”.
- Cloud option with EU data residency: DeepSeek-V4-Flash via Microsoft Foundry with “Data Zone Standard EU”, or DeepSeek-V3.1/V3.2 via AWS Bedrock in Stockholm (In-Region). The direct API is an option for non-critical data; shifting batch workloads to off-peak halves token costs.
- Demanding agentic workflows: V4-Pro (GA build 0813) with reasoning effort
highormax; on Azure, however, only as “Global Standard” without an EU data zone. - Low-cost all-rounder with image understanding: V4.1-Flash via the direct API for non-critical data.
- Self-hosting: DeepSeek-V4-Flash (open April weights, MIT) or V3.2 for maximum control, customizability and the most reliable EU data residency. DeepSeek has not confirmed whether V4.1-Flash and V4-Pro-0813 will be released as weights.
The choice depends on your requirements for control, compliance and technical resources – and with DeepSeek especially on the specific model and deployment type.