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In this article, we explain "DeepSeek R1," the AI that took the world by storm when it launched in January 2025 — in terms simple enough for anyone to understand.
DeepSeek R1 is a "reasoning AI" developed by the Chinese AI company DeepSeek. A reasoning AI is one that works through problems step by step, much like a human would.
The reason this AI is attracting so much attention is that it delivers nearly the same performance as "o1" — a top-tier AI created by OpenAI — while costing approximately 96% less. On top of that, it is offered as "open source," meaning the program is made freely available to the public.
On a test involving difficult math problems (AIME 2024), it achieved an accuracy rate of 79.8%.
That is almost identical to OpenAI o1's result.
In short, the defining characteristic of DeepSeek R1 is that it delivers top-level performance at a price accessible to everyone.
DeepSeek R1 comes with a range of useful features not found in other AIs. Here are five of the main ones.
DeepSeek R1 displays its reasoning step by step as it works toward an answer.
For a math problem, for example, it might show: "First, I'll calculate this expression, then use this value to…" — letting you see exactly how the AI thought things through.
This is called "Chain of Thought" (a chain of reasoning).
It works through complex equations and logic puzzles carefully, one step at a time.
It excels at tricky homework problems and brain-teaser logic puzzles alike.
It makes few calculation errors and provides easy-to-follow explanations.
It can write programming code and correct mistakes in existing code.
Tell it what functionality you want, and it will produce working code for you.
It's also useful for beginners learning to program.
It supports Japanese, so you can use it comfortably even if your English isn't strong.
However, since the AI was originally trained primarily in Chinese and English, its Japanese isn't always perfectly natural.
That said, it handles everyday conversation and questions without any real issues.
DeepSeek R1 can process up to about 66,000 characters of information at once.
That's roughly equivalent to an entire book.
It can read lengthy documents and summarize the key points, or search through large volumes of information to find exactly what you need.
Getting started with DeepSeek R1 is very straightforward. Here's a beginner-friendly guide in five steps.
Open an internet browser (such as Chrome or Safari) and go to chat.deepseek.com. This is the DeepSeek R1 chat interface.
If it's your first time, create a free account.
Enter your email address and follow the instructions in the confirmation email — that's all there is to it.
No complicated setup is required.
Once you're logged in, you can choose from several AI models.
Select "DeepSeek R1."
Use R1 for challenging problems that require deep reasoning; for regular conversation, "V3" works just fine too.
Type what you want to ask in the input field at the bottom of the screen. You can ask anything — for example, "Explain how to find the area of a triangle" or "Write me code in Python that makes a calculator."
The AI will display both its thinking process and its final answer.
If the reasoning is lengthy, you can follow along as it works through it.
If anything is unclear, you can simply keep asking follow-up questions.
Every tool has its strengths and its limitations, and DeepSeek R1 is no exception.
DeepSeek R1 is especially well suited for the following types of people.
DeepSeek R1 is a high-performance, low-cost reasoning AI. Let's recap the key points:
DeepSeek R1 is a groundbreaking tool that has made a major leap forward in the democratization of AI — making it accessible to everyone. Since you can try it for free, why not head over to the official site (chat.deepseek.com) and give it a go?
This article is a cross-post from AI Friends.
