DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup, surprised the tech world on August 21, 2025, by unveiling DeepSeek-V3.1, the latest upgrade to its flagship V3 model. The company announced the launch via a WeChat post, highlighting faster processing speeds and smart features designed to align with China’s push for domestic chip independence. Notably, V3.1 is optimized for Chinese-made chips using a special precision format called UE8M0 FP8, signaling its readiness for China’s next-generation semiconductor ecosystem amid ongoing U.S. export restrictions.
One of the key innovations in DeepSeek-V3.1 is a new “deep thinking” button that allows users to toggle between two modes—a fast, casual chat mode and a complex, reasoning-intensive mode. This hybrid inference structure adds flexibility, enabling the AI to adjust its thinking depth according to task complexity. For developers, DeepSeek announced changes to API pricing starting September 6, 2025, offering clearer insights into integration costs.
Under the hood, DeepSeek-V3.1 boasts a massive 671-billion-parameter model, achieving strong benchmark results such as 71.6% on Aider coding tests while operating at a fraction of the cost of proprietary systems like Claude Opus 4. Importantly, it is available under an open-source MIT license, enabling free use, modification, and private deployment—a move that reinforces China’s ambition for self-reliant, scalable AI development accessible worldwide.
Alongside DeepSeek’s advancements, Perplexity has introduced exciting new features for Indian users in the stock market domain. Recently, Perplexity expanded its Finance tab to include live earnings call transcripts for Indian public companies, providing retail investors with real-time access to detailed stock data, earnings schedules, market summaries, watchlists, sector trends, and cryptocurrency insights from the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange.
Check out: Perplexity AI Launches Video Generation With Audio Feature for Pro and Max Users
CEO Aravind Srinivas emphasized that this expansion aims to democratize premium market intelligence, equipping Indian investors with tools traditionally behind paywalls, and more innovations like price alerts and natural-language stock screening are in the pipeline.
In a parallel development, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go in India on August 18, 2025—a new low-cost subscription plan priced at ₹399 per month. ChatGPT Go offers ten times more message capacity than the free version, supports image generation and file uploads, and can maintain longer conversation memory for personalized assistance.
This plan integrates multiple Indian languages and allows payments via UPI, increasing accessibility to AI-powered tools for millions of Indian users. India is regarded as one of OpenAI’s fastest-growing and most innovative markets, with plans to refine ChatGPT Go based on local feedback before wider rollout.
Together, these developments showcase a rapidly evolving AI ecosystem characterized by hardware-optimized models, localized financial insights, and accessible cutting-edge tools tailored to regional needs. DeepSeek’s emphasis on domestic chip compatibility, Perplexity’s real-time stock market intelligence, and OpenAI’s affordable conversational AI offering illustrate the global and local strides shaping how AI innovation reaches users worldwide—creating new possibilities for industries, developers, and consumers alike.
