Industry analysts estimate DeepSeek’s total hardware investment surpasses US$500 million, far exceeding the publicly stated US$6 million pre-training cost.

The US$6 million figure only covers GPU pre-training – not accounting for research, development, data preparation, and hardware maintenance costs.

With a workforce of about 150, DeepSeek aggressively recruits top graduates, offering salaries exceeding US$1.3 million annually for high-potential candidates.

Backed by Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer, it initially secured nearly 10,000 A100 GPUs prior. Recent reports suggest DeepSeek and High-Flyer now operate around 50,000 GPUs, including H800 and restricted H20 models.

Recent DeepSeek developments