TLDR
- DeepSeek released V4.1-Flash-1017, an AI model it says is faster and leaner.
- The model is live on DeepSeek’s website, mobile app and developer platform.
- It scored 77.0 on DeepSWE v1.1, up from 74.2 for the earlier version.
- DeepSeek opened its Search and Fetch APIs to all users at $0.75 per 1,000 calls.
- The release follows a five-hour outage earlier this week.
DeepSeek released an updated version of its AI model on Saturday. The Chinese company says the new version is faster and leaner.
🚨JUST IN: China’s DeepSeek releases V4.1-Flash-1017, claiming FASTER performance and improved reasoning, coding, and AI agent capabilities.
The open-weight model reportedly outperforms its predecessor across nearly all benchmarks while completing tasks faster and using fewer… pic.twitter.com/G0gdBa1FiV
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) October 18, 2026
The model is called DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017. It is live on the company’s website, mobile app and developer platform.
DeepSeek announced the update in posts on X. It cited stronger benchmark performance, faster task completion and shorter outputs than the previous version.
What the Update Includes
The company described the release as a minor update to V4.1-Flash. It also called the change a “Pareto improvement” in performance and cost.
DeepSeek said the model improves reasoning, coding, agentic tasks and visual benchmarks. Its technical report on Hugging Face also points to better results in game creation and 3D modeling.
The model uses reinforcement learning with self-feedback. DeepSeek says this helps it build projects from start to finish.
It is optimized for tools including DeepSeek Harness, Tencent CodeBuddy and WorkBuddy.
DeepSeek also opened its Search and Fetch APIs to all users. The services run on the company’s own search engine.
Each Search or Fetch API endpoint costs $0.75 per 1,000 calls.
Benchmark Scores
The model scored 77.0 on the DeepSWE v1.1 benchmark, up from 74.2 for the earlier version. On Automation-Bench V1.0.6, it scored 60.5, compared with 54.8 before.
DeepSeek also shared results for Humanity’s Last Exam. The test covers thousands of questions in math, science and the humanities.
The revised model scored 36.8 to 42.6 on that test. V4.1-Flash scored 36.8 to 39.1.
The release adds to DeepSeek’s challenge to US rivals Anthropic and OpenAI. It also competes with Chinese firms such as Moonshot Kimi and Z.ai.
DeepSeek’s open-weight models cost far less than the proprietary US models. The US models remain top performers.
The earlier V4.1-Flash launched in early September at a steep discount. Shares of MiniMax Group, Z.ai and Alibaba Group fell on the Hong Kong stock exchange afterward.
Earlier this week, DeepSeek had an outage of about five hours. Some experts blamed a lack of computing resources, and slowdowns have increased in recent months.
DeepSeek released the update late Saturday, Oct. 17. It is available now on the web, in the app and through the API.
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