DeepSeek is making OpenAI look like amateurs, and the numbers don’t lie.
The Chinese AI startup is hitting 73.7k tokens/s input and 14.8k tokens/s output throughput per H800 node. That’s not just fast – it’s absurdly efficient. And while OpenAI bleeds cash despite their sky-high prices, DeepSeek is enjoying a 545% profit margin.
How are they pulling this off? It comes down to their inference stack.
DeepSeek has optimized three key areas: cross-node EP-powered batch scaling, computation-communication overlap, and load balancing. These aren’t just minor tweaks – they’re fundamental engineering innovations that completely change the economics of AI inference.
Let’s put this in perspective: DeepSeek spent just $6 million training their model on 2,000 Nvidia H800 GPUs. OpenAI? They dropped $80-100 million using 16,000 H100 GPUs for GPT-4. DeepSeek is delivering similar or better performance at a fraction of the cost.
Their pricing reflects this efficiency. DeepSeek’s services cost less than 1% of what OpenAI charges for GPT-4.5, yet they’re outperforming it on several benchmarks. This isn’t just a pricing strategy – it’s a structural advantage baked into their technical approach.
This has serious implications for the AI market. The conventional wisdom was that building and running advanced AI models is inherently expensive. DeepSeek is proving that’s simply not true with the right engineering.
And here’s what’s most interesting: DeepSeek is open-source. They’re proving you don’t need to lock everything behind proprietary walls to build a profitable AI business. Their 545% profit margin speaks for itself.
OpenAI and other competitors need to take note. If they can’t match DeepSeek’s efficiency, they’ll eventually be priced out of the market – no matter how many fancy features they add. This is especially relevant after OpenAI’s extreme pricing for GPT-4.5 that many found unjustified by its modest improvements.
We’ve seen similar patterns with Alibaba’s Wan 2.1 video model – cost-effective AI is coming from unexpected places and challenging established players.
The bottom line is clear: DeepSeek has built the most efficient inference stack in the industry, and it’s paying off in both performance and profitability. Their approach proves that technical excellence ultimately translates to business success in AI.
The question now is whether OpenAI can respond, or if they’ll continue charging premium prices while bleeding cash. The AI market is changing fast, and DeepSeek just showed everyone what the future looks like.
