60 Latest DeepSeek Statistics (2026)

Picture this: You’re at a tech conference, and everyone’s buzzing about the latest AI breakthroughs. Suddenly, someone drops a stat—“Did you know DeepSeek hit nearly 97 million monthly active users in April 2025?” Heads turn, eyebrows raise, and suddenly, DeepSeek is the name on everyone’s lips. In a world where OpenAI and Google Gemini have dominated the conversation, DeepSeek’s meteoric rise is shaking up the artificial intelligence scene. If you’re tracking the future of AI startups, or just want to know where the next big leap is coming from, DeepSeek’s numbers are impossible to ignore.

As someone who’s spent years building automation and AI tools, I love digging into the data behind these trends. DeepSeek isn’t just another AI startup—it’s a force that’s redefining what’s possible in cost, scale, and open-source innovation. Whether you’re an enterprise leader, a developer, or just an AI enthusiast, these DeepSeek statistics will give you a front-row seat to the future of artificial intelligence.

DeepSeek at a Glance: Headline AI Statistics for 2026

Let’s kick things off with the most jaw-dropping DeepSeek stats you need to know. These are the numbers that have the AI world talking:

• 96.9 million monthly active users in April 2025, quadrupling in just a few months ().
• $3.4 billion valuation by mid-2025, up from $1.9B a year earlier ().
• $1.1 billion in total funding, including a $520M Series C ().
• 85.6% on HumanEval for DeepSeek-Coder V2—the best open-source code model ().
• 87.2% on VQAv2 for DeepSeek-VL (vision+language), with 92.1% OCR accuracy ().
• 97.3% on MATH-500 for DeepSeek-R1, beating GPT-4 ().
• 170,000 GitHub stars—the most-starred AI project in 2025 ().
• $0.028 per 1M input tokens (cache-hit) and $0.42 per 1M output tokens—an order of magnitude cheaper than most Western models ().
• 5.7 billion API calls per month on the general LLM API ().
• 38% of new AI research papers in Q1 2025 cited DeepSeek tools or datasets ().

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s dig deeper into how DeepSeek is rewriting the playbook for AI startups.

DeepSeek User Growth: Downloads, Monthly Actives, and Global Reach

DeepSeek’s user numbers are the kind of thing that make even seasoned AI founders do a double-take. Since its launch in January 2025, DeepSeek has gone from a promising upstart to a global contender:

• 75 million total downloads as of April 2025 ().
• 38 million monthly active users in April 2025, up from 33.7M in January ().
• Some trackers show MAUs quadrupling to 96.9M by April 2025 ().
• 22.15 million daily active users in January 2025 ().
• 25.8% month-over-month MAU growth into April 2025 ().
• 125 million MAUs claimed by mid-2025 ().

To put that in perspective: Google Gemini hit about 350M MAUs, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT boasted 600M in the same period (). DeepSeek is now the #4 AI app by MAU worldwide ().

DeepSeek User Demographics: Who’s Using DeepSeek?

If you think AI is just for tech bros in Silicon Valley, think again. DeepSeek’s user base is young, global, and surprisingly diverse:

• The 18–24 age group is the largest: 44.9% of Android users and 38.7% of iOS users ().
• The 50–64 bracket makes up about 23–26% of users ().
• Only about 1% of users are 65+ on each platform ().
• Gender and platform splits are less public, but Android slightly edges out iOS in most regions.

What does this mean? DeepSeek is resonating with the next generation of AI users—students, young professionals, and early adopters—especially in Asia.

DeepSeek’s Global Footprint: Top Countries by User Share

DeepSeek’s reach is truly global, but its strongest roots are in Asia:

• China: ~30.7% of MAUs ()
• India: ~13.6%
• Indonesia: ~6.9%
• United States: ~4.3%
• France: ~3.2%

Download analytics show a similar pattern: 30–34% from China, ~6% from the US (). DeepSeek supports 37 locales and is gaining traction in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region ().

DeepSeek’s AI Technology: Model Architecture, Training, and Innovations

Key innovations:

• DeepSeek-Coder: Function-level retrieval for code generation.
• DeepSeek-VL: Vision+language model with visual transformers.
• Knowledge Indexing Engine: For continuous fine-tuning and retrieval ().

DeepSeek’s focus is on practical efficiency and consistency—it’s not just about having the biggest model, but the smartest one for real-world tasks ().

DeepSeek Model Benchmarks: How Does It Perform?

Let’s talk numbers—because benchmarks are where reputations are made (and lost):

• HumanEval (coding): 85.6% (DeepSeek-Coder V2, best open-source) ()
• VQAv2 (vision+language): 87.2% ()
• OCR accuracy: 92.1%
• MATH-500: 97.3% (vs. GPT-4’s 96.4%) ()
• AIME-2024: 79.8% (vs. GPT-4’s 79.2%)
• LiveCodeBench: 65.9% (vs. GPT-4’s 63.4%)
• CodeLlama (coding): DeepSeek outperforms by +7.4% ()

And the kicker? DeepSeek achieved GPT-4–level performance using only $5.5M in training costs ().

DeepSeek in the AI Startup Landscape: Funding, Valuation, and Market Share

DeepSeek’s growth isn’t just technical—it’s financial and strategic:

• $1.1 billion in total funding ().
• $520 million Series C in early 2025.
• $3.4 billion valuation by mid-2025 ().
• $220 million annual revenue run rate by mid-2025 ().
• 26,000+ corporate accounts using DeepSeek ().
• 3,200 organizations deployed with DeepSeek Enterprise ().

Most funding comes from Chinese tech and hedge funds, reflecting DeepSeek’s strategic role in China’s AI race ().

DeepSeek’s Place in the AI Ecosystem: Open-Source and Developer Adoption

DeepSeek’s open-source momentum is nothing short of legendary:

• 170,000 GitHub stars (most-starred AI project in 2025) ().
• 60,000+ unique contributors ().
• 11.2 million model weight downloads by mid-2025 ().
• 1.2 million SDK/package downloads (PyPI/NPM) in early 2025 ().
• 420,000 Discord members—that’s a lot of AI memes ().
• 58% of new AI startups in 2025 include DeepSeek in their stack ().

This open-source energy is fueling DeepSeek’s rapid adoption in both startups and enterprises.

DeepSeek Pricing: Token Costs and Affordability Compared

Here’s where DeepSeek really turns heads—pricing. If you’ve ever gotten sticker shock from OpenAI’s API bills, DeepSeek’s rates are a breath of fresh air:

• DeepSeek-R1: $0.55 per 1M input tokens, $2.19 per 1M output ().
• DeepSeek-V3.2 API: $0.028 (cache-hit) / $0.28 (cache-miss) per 1M input tokens, $0.42 per 1M output ().
• OpenAI GPT-4o: $5 (input) / $15 (output) per 1M tokens ().
• Google Gemini 2.5 Pro: ~$1.25 (input) / $10 (output).
• Anthropic Claude Opus: $15 (input) / $75 (output).
• xAI Grok-4.1: $0.20 (input) / $0.50 (output).

DeepSeek’s token costs are 4–10× cheaper than Gemini and 25–75× cheaper than Claude (). That’s why it’s winning over cost-sensitive startups, researchers, and enterprises.

DeepSeek Product Usage: Key Features and Enterprise Adoption

DeepSeek isn’t just a research darling—it’s powering real-world products at scale:

• 5.7 billion API calls per month on the general LLM ().
• 1.9 billion code-generation queries for DeepSeek-Coder in H1 2025.
• 980 million multimodal queries per month for DeepSeek-VL.
• #2 coding assistant on StackOverflow by user preference ().
• 3,200 organizations using DeepSeek Enterprise, especially in tech, finance, healthcare, and education ().

Top enterprise use cases:

• Automated financial analysis
• Medical diagnostics
• Customer support automation
• Developer tools and code generation ()

DeepSeek vs. OpenAI and Other AI Startups: Performance and Market Comparison

DeepSeek’s key differentiators: low cost, technical efficiency, and a thriving open-source ecosystem. OpenAI and Google still lead in scale and brand, but DeepSeek is closing the gap—fast.

DeepSeek’s Impact on the AI Community: Research, Open-Source, and Academic Influence

DeepSeek isn’t just a product company—it’s shaping the future of AI research and open-source:

• 38% of new AI papers in Q1 2025 cite DeepSeek tools or datasets ().
• 2.1B-token multilingual public dataset released for research ().
• Millions of model weight downloads for open experimentation.
• Sponsorship of coding/math challenges and free API credits for researchers.
• Most-starred AI project on GitHub in 2025 ().

This academic and open-source influence is why DeepSeek is a go-to for both university labs and indie hackers.

DeepSeek Controversies, Bans, and Regulatory Challenges

Of course, no AI rocketship launches without turbulence. DeepSeek’s rapid growth has drawn plenty of scrutiny:

• Banned or restricted in several countries over privacy/security concerns ():
  • Italy (removed from app stores, Jan 2025)
  • Germany (data protection ban, June 2025)
  • Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, and some U.S. agencies (usage restrictions)
• Critics cite risks of data leaks and regulatory non-compliance.
• DeepSeek claims to have reduced adversarial hallucinations to ~2.3% in 2025 (), addressing some safety concerns.
• The company has pledged security reviews and compliance, but global expansion means ongoing regulatory challenges.

What’s Next for DeepSeek? Predictions and Future Outlook

So, what’s on the horizon for DeepSeek? Here’s what industry insiders and analysts are watching:

• DeepSeek V4 is expected in early 2026 (likely February, around Chinese New Year) ().
• V4 will focus on developer tools, long-context coding, and complex software reasoning ().
• Roadmap includes on-device models, advanced agent features (like DeepSeek-Govern), and expanded multimodal AI.
• Key risks: global competition (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic), regulatory hurdles, and scaling infrastructure.
• Many experts see DeepSeek as a bellwether for global AI trends—its success (or struggles) will shape the next wave of AI investment and strategy.

Key Takeaways: DeepSeek’s Role in the Future of Artificial Intelligence

Let’s wrap up with the big picture. Here’s why DeepSeek matters—and why these stats are worth your attention:

• DeepSeek is the fastest-growing AI startup of 2025–2026, with user numbers and developer adoption that rival the biggest names in the field.
• Its models deliver GPT-4–level performance at a fraction of the cost, making advanced AI accessible to startups, researchers, and enterprises worldwide.
• Open-source DNA and a thriving developer community (170k GitHub stars, 60k contributors) set DeepSeek apart from more closed competitors.
• Academic and enterprise adoption is surging, with DeepSeek cited in nearly 40% of new AI research and deployed in thousands of organizations.
• Regulatory and privacy challenges are real, but DeepSeek’s commitment to compliance and safety is helping it navigate the global landscape.
• The future is bright: With V4 on the way and a relentless focus on efficiency and openness, DeepSeek is poised to shape the next era of artificial intelligence.

For anyone tracking AI statistics, startup trends, or the future of artificial intelligence, DeepSeek is a name you’ll want to remember. And if you’re like me—always on the lookout for the next big thing in AI—these numbers are a pretty good sign that DeepSeek is just getting started.

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