DeepSic Permanently Reduces Flagship Model API Fees by 75%

Chinese AI startup DeepSic has decided to permanently implement a 75 percent reduction in API fees for its flagship model ‘B4-Pro’. In an official statement released on Saturday, the company announced that the discount initially offered as a special promotion will now continue indefinitely. This means that the usage fee for this model will be only one-quarter of the previous rate.

DeepSic has enhanced the performance of its B4-Pro model by utilizing Huawei’s ‘Ascend 950’ chips. According to the new pricing structure, the API fees for this model range from 0.025 yuan to 6 yuan per one million tokens, down from the previous range of 0.1 yuan to 24 yuan. In the AI field, a ‘token’ refers to a small unit of words or characters processed by the model.

Huawei’s AI chip sales appear to be indirectly benefiting from US export control policies, which prohibit American tech company Nvidia from selling the most advanced semiconductors in China. However, due to stringent restrictions on chip production equipment, Huawei has faced some challenges in scaling up production of its ‘Ascend’ chips. When DeepSic launched its fourth-generation ‘B4’ model last month, it noted that limited availability of the Pro version—due to a shortage of high-capacity computing power—and its price being 12 times higher than the less powerful ‘Flash’ version would be factors affecting users.