Beijing, Apr 24, 2026 (Reuters) — Chinese AI startup DeepSeek on Friday launched a preview of its long-awaited new model, V4, offering both a higher-performance pro edition and a lower-cost flash edition.
DeepSeek said the pro version of V4 outperforms other open-source models on world-knowledge benchmarks and trails only Google’s closed-source Gemini-Pro-3.1. The company described the preview releases as a way to gather real-world feedback while the model is still under development and gave no timeline for when V4 will be finalized.
DeepSeek is owned by High-Flyer Capital Management and, according to The Information, is reportedly seeking to raise funds at a valuation above $20 billion, with Alibaba and Tencent said to be in talks to take stakes.
The company has faced controversy and repeated accusations from Washington and U.S. rivals of improper and illegal behaviour. On Thursday the White House accused China of stealing U.S. AI labs’ intellectual property on an industrial scale, a claim that could complicate relations ahead of a planned summit between U.S. and Chinese leaders. The Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected the allegations as baseless and said Beijing attaches great importance to protecting intellectual property rights.
