DeepSeek R1: What It Is and Why It Matters

DeepSeek R1 is a new open-source model that has achieved high rankings across several benchmarks, standing out for its ability to compete with leading closed-source models. Its significant feature is the "chain of thought" prompting, which allows models to break down reasoning into smaller, visible steps, enhancing transparency and accuracy. While running the full model requires substantial resources, distillation and quantization efforts have made it more accessible by transferring its knowledge into smaller, more efficient models. This development highlights the growing competitive edge of open-source models against established closed-source giants, offering both high performance and privacy benefits in data handling.