DeepSeek unveils V4 Flash and V4 Pro previews a year after breakthrough

A year after its breakthrough, Chinese startup DeepSeek has introduced the preview series of its next flagship AI models, unveiling V4 Flash and V4 Pro on April 24. The company is touting top-tier performance in coding benchmarks and what it describes as major gains in reasoning and agentic tasks.

DeepSeek presented the new models as a preview lineup rather than a final release, positioning V4 Flash and V4 Pro as the next step in its flagship series. The company’s announcement emphasized improvements aimed at developers and complex task automation, though it framed the gains in terms of benchmarks and capabilities rather than release timelines.

The rollout comes amid a broader surge in China’s AI market that DeepSeek has helped catalyze. The startup’s rise has sparked a frenzy as tech leaders including Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu have flooded the market with low-cost AI services, intensifying competition over performance and price.

With V4 Flash and V4 Pro now in preview, DeepSeek is signaling continued focus on coding proficiency, reasoning, and agentic capabilities—areas that have become central to the ongoing race among AI developers.