DeepSeek-R1-0528 is here, and this latest iteration is generating almost as much stir as the initial open-source R1 reasoning model did in January. The Chinese startup, owned by quantitative analysis firm High-Flyer Capital, is touted by one media outlet as “near parity in reasoning capabilities with proprietary paid models such as OpenAI’s o3 and Google Gemini 2.5 Pro.” Promised are stronger capabilities in complex reasoning centered on math, science, business and coding, along with improved features for developers and researchers. As with the earlier release, the DeepSeek-R1-0528 is available under the MIT License, which supports commercial use and allows customization.

Documentation and open-source weights are available on Hugging Face, where the company also provides documentation and benchmark scores stacked up against those of its top competitors. Although it trails OpenAI o3 on five tests and ties on the sixth, it tops Gemini 2.3 Pro-2506 in three of six (with one a virtual dead heat).

However, when measuring all considerations —  including cost, which factors in the needed compute power and energy requirements as well as the permissive terms — Tom’s Guide concludes that “with its open-source license and lightweight training demands, DeepSeek is proving to be faster and smarter.”

“The smaller updated R1, which was built using the Qwen3-8B model Alibaba launched in May as a foundation, performs better than Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash on AIME 2025, a collection of challenging math questions,” reports TechCrunch. “DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B also nearly matches Microsoft’s recently released Phi-4-reasoning-plus model on another math skills test, HMMT.”

VentureBeat points out that “existing DeepSeek API users will automatically have their model inferences updated to R1-0528 at no additional cost,” while noting that “the current cost for DeepSeek’s API is $0.14 per 1 million input tokens during regular hours of 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.,” dropping to $0.035 during low-demand hours.

“Output for 1 million tokens is consistently priced at $2.19,” VB writes.

For those who want to run R1 locally, GitHub provides the full source code and detailed instructions. Individual users can experiment with it for free on DeepSeek’s English-language website, “though you’ll need to provide a phone number or Google Account access to sign in,” according to VB.

Related:
DeepSeek: Everything You Need to Know About the AI Chatbot App, TechCrunch, 5/28/25
DeepSeek’s Latest AI Model a ‘Big Step Backwards’ for Free Speech, AI News, 5/30/25