China’s DeepSeek closes in on US rival OpenAI, surpasses Alibaba with upgraded model

Benchmark results cited by DeepSeek show that R1-0528’s performance surpasses Alibaba’s Qwen3 and matches models from OpenAI, Google

Ben Jiangin Beijing
DeepSeek has released more details about its newly upgraded R1 reasoning AI model. Photo: Getty Images/TNS
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek said R1-0528, the first significant upgrade to its R1 reasoning model that debuted in January, matched the performance of top global competitors, including OpenAI and Google.

In a statement released late on Thursday, DeepSeek highlighted improvements in the new model’s reasoning and creative writing capabilities, making it more adept at crafting argumentative essays, fiction and prose in styles that closely mimic human authors. Coding capabilities have also been enhanced.

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