The Chinese startup triggered a $1 trillion-plus sell-off in global equities markets last month with a cut-price AI reasoning model that outperformed many Western competitors. Now, the Hangzhou-based firm is accelerating the launch of the successor to January’s R1 model, according to three people familiar with the company. Deepseek had planned to release R2 in early May but now wants it out as early as possible, two of them said, without providing specifics. The company says it hopes the new model will produce better coding and be able to reason in languages beyond English. Details of the accelerated timeline for R2’s release have not been previously reported. DeepSeek did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Rivals are still digesting the implications of R1, which was built with less-powerful Nvidia chips but is competitive with those developed at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars by U.S. tech giants. “The launch of DeepSeek’s R2 model could be a pivotal moment in the AI industry,” said Vijayasimha Alilughatta, chief operating officer of Indian tech services provider Zensar. DeepSeek’s success at creating cost-effective AI models “would likely spur companies worldwide to accelerate their own efforts … breaking the stranglehold of the few dominant players in the field,” he said.

Full report : DeepSeek likely to release next-generation R2 model before May even as U.S. vs China AI race enters new phase.