DeepSeek’s Upgraded V4.1-Flash Model Shakes Up AI Industry

DeepSeek’s latest update to its affordable lightweight model, V4.1-Flash, is making a big splash in the industry because of significant improvements from the previous version that bring it closer to frontier models.

The upgraded version released on Saturday, V4.1-Flash-1017, is delivering highly competitive performance despite the model’s relatively small size and very low pricing. It scored higher than OpenAI’s GPT5.6 Sol on Terminal-Bench 4.0, a benchmark for evaluating a model’s ability to perform complex multi-step tasks.

The original V4.1-Flash model, released last month, has gained massive popularity among developers around the world seeking models that can power autonomous agents without breaking the bank. The update is likely to further boost the demand for the model.

DeepSeek only charges $1.20 for output per 1 million tokens at peak hours and $0.60 at non-peak hours for the application programming interface of V4.1-Flash—a tiny fraction compared to $20 for GPT5.6 Sol.