Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek has officially launched its V4 Pro model as it seeks to strengthen its position in China’s increasingly competitive AI market while expanding its workforce, computing capacity and fundraising efforts.
DeepSeek said on Thursday that its V4-Pro-0813 model delivers significant improvements in AI agent capabilities and is available through its API, mobile application and website.
The company also announced plans to increase API prices for its V4 Pro and V4 Flash models while introducing separate pricing for peak and off-peak periods.
The launch follows an unusual development in April, when DeepSeek’s lower-cost V4 Flash model outperformed a preview version of the more advanced V4 Pro in several independent tests.
The results attracted attention because the Pro model is designed to offer stronger capabilities, suggesting that DeepSeek may have made rapid improvements to its technology between the preview and official release.
DeepSeek gained global attention after its R1 model surged in popularity in early 2025, triggering debate over whether advanced AI systems could be developed at significantly lower costs than those of leading US competitors.
Since then, the company has faced growing competition from Chinese AI developers, including Moonshot AI, Zhipu AI, MiniMax, Alibaba and ByteDance, which have released increasingly advanced models of their own.
DeepSeek is also seeking to turn its growing technological profile into a sustainable business. Reuters reported in July that the company was preparing a new fundraising round at a valuation of about $74 billion, weeks after raising about $7.4 billion in its first external financing round in June.
The fundraising represented a significant shift for DeepSeek, which had previously relied less on external capital. It also highlights the rising cost of competing in the AI industry, where companies require substantial investment in advanced chips, data centres and specialised talent.
DeepSeek has said it plans to at least double its workforce across several departments, including data-centre operations and AI-agent development.
The company is also increasing its recruitment of chip-design engineers as it works to develop its own AI chip. The effort could eventually reduce its dependence on suppliers such as Nvidia and Huawei as DeepSeek seeks greater control over the hardware supporting its AI systems.
Goodness Anunobi
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