China's DeepSeek Releases V3.1, Boosting AI Model's Capabilities

DeepSeek announced what appeared to be an update to its older V3 artificial intelligence model on Tuesday, declaring an enhanced version ready for testing.

The V3.1 has a longer context window, according to a DeepSeek post to its official WeChat group, meaning it can consider a larger amount of information for any given query. That could allow it to maintain longer conversations with better recall, for example. The Hangzhou-based startup didn’t offer much more detail on the update and hasn’t posted documentation to major platforms including Hugging Face.

The speed and popularity of DeepSeek’s models have challenged US incumbents such as OpenAI, and demonstrated how Chinese companies can make strides in artificial intelligence for seemingly a fraction of the cost. Its R1 model, which outperformed several Western rivals on standardized metrics, stunned the world when it was unveiled earlier this year.

DeepSeek fans are still awaiting the release of R2, the successor to R1, with local media blaming CEO Liang Wenfeng’s perfectionism and glitches for the delay.