DeepSeek R1's Implications: Winners and Losers in the Generative AI Value Chain
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R1 is mainly open, on par with leading exclusive models, appears to have been trained at significantly lower expense, and is more affordable to use in terms of API gain access to, all of which point to a development that might alter competitive dynamics in the field of Generative AI.

  • IoT Analytics sees end users and AI applications companies as the greatest winners of these current advancements, while exclusive design suppliers stand to lose the most, based upon worth chain analysis from the Generative AI Market Report 2025-2030 (published January 2025).
    Why it matters

    For providers to the generative AI worth chain: Players along the (generative) AI value chain may require to re-assess their value proposals and line up to a possible reality of low-cost, light-weight, open-weight models. For generative AI adopters: DeepSeek R1 and other frontier models that may follow present lower-cost choices for AI adoption.
    Background: DeepSeek’s R1 design rattles the markets

    DeepSeek’s R1 model rocked the stock markets. On January 23, 2025, China-based AI start-up DeepSeek released its open-source R1 thinking generative AI (GenAI) model. News about R1 rapidly spread out, and by the start of stock trading on January 27, 2025, the marketplace cap for numerous major technology companies with large AI footprints had fallen significantly ever since:

    NVIDIA, a US-based chip designer and developer most known for its information center GPUs, dropped 18% between the marketplace close on January 24 and the marketplace close on February 3. Microsoft, the leading hyperscaler in the cloud AI race with its Azure cloud services, dropped 7.5% (Jan 24-Feb 3). Broadcom, a semiconductor business focusing on networking, broadband, and custom-made ASICs, dropped 11% (Jan 24-Feb 3). Siemens Energy, a German energy technology vendor that provides energy solutions for data center operators, dropped 17.8% (Jan 24-Feb 3).
    Market participants, and specifically investors, responded to the story that the design that DeepSeek launched is on par with innovative designs, was allegedly trained on only a couple of thousands of GPUs, and is open source. However, because that preliminary sell-off, reports and analysis shed some light on the initial hype.

    The insights from this post are based on

    Download a sample to read more about the report structure, choose definitions, choose market data, additional data points, and patterns.

    DeepSeek R1: What do we understand previously?

    DeepSeek R1 is an affordable, cutting-edge thinking model that measures up to top competitors while fostering openness through openly available weights.

    DeepSeek R1 is on par with leading reasoning models. The biggest DeepSeek R1 design (with 685 billion specifications) performance is on par or perhaps much better than some of the leading models by US foundation design service providers. Benchmarks show that DeepSeek’s R1 design performs on par or much better than leading, more familiar models like OpenAI’s o1 and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet. DeepSeek was trained at a considerably lower cost-but not to the level that preliminary news recommended. Initial reports indicated that the training expenses were over $5.5 million, but the true value of not just training but developing the model overall has been debated given that its release. According to semiconductor research and consulting company SemiAnalysis, the $5.5 million figure is only one element of the expenses, neglecting hardware spending, the salaries of the research and advancement group, and other aspects. DeepSeek’s API prices is over 90% more affordable than OpenAI’s. No matter the real expense to establish the model, DeepSeek is offering a much cheaper proposition for utilizing its API: input and output tokens for DeepSeek R1 cost $0.55 per million and $2.19 per million, respectively, compared to OpenAI’s $15 per million and $60 per million for its o1 model. DeepSeek R1 is an ingenious model. The associated clinical paper launched by DeepSeekshows the methods used to establish R1 based upon V3: leveraging the mixture of professionals (MoE) architecture, support knowing, and extremely innovative hardware optimization to produce models needing fewer resources to train and likewise less resources to perform AI inference, causing its previously mentioned API usage expenses. DeepSeek is more open than the majority of its competitors. DeepSeek R1 is available free of charge on platforms like HuggingFace or GitHub. While DeepSeek has actually made its weights available and provided its training approaches in its term paper, the initial training code and information have not been made available for a proficient person to develop a comparable design, aspects in defining an open-source AI system according to the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Though DeepSeek has been more open than other GenAI companies, R1 remains in the open-weight category when thinking about OSI requirements. However, the release triggered interest in the open source neighborhood: Hugging Face has actually released an Open-R1 initiative on Github to develop a full reproduction of R1 by constructing the “missing pieces of the R1 pipeline,” moving the design to fully open source so anyone can recreate and construct on top of it. DeepSeek launched powerful little models together with the significant R1 release. DeepSeek launched not only the major big design with more than 680 billion specifications however also-as of this article-6 distilled designs of DeepSeek R1. The models vary from 70B to 1.5 B, the latter fitting on lots of consumer-grade hardware. Since February 3, 2025, the models were downloaded more than 1 million times on HuggingFace alone. DeepSeek R1 was perhaps trained on OpenAI’s information. On January 29, 2025, reports shared that Microsoft is examining whether DeepSeek used OpenAI’s API to train its models (an offense of OpenAI’s regards to service)- though the hyperscaler also included R1 to its Azure AI Foundry service.
    Understanding the generative AI value chain

    GenAI spending advantages a broad market worth chain. The graphic above, based upon research for IoT Analytics’ Generative AI Market Report 2025-2030 (released January 2025), depicts key recipients of GenAI costs throughout the worth chain. Companies along the worth chain consist of:

    Completion users - End users consist of consumers and services that utilize a Generative AI application. GenAI applications - Software vendors that consist of GenAI features in their products or deal standalone GenAI software application. This consists of enterprise software application business like Salesforce, with its focus on Agentic AI, and start-ups particularly focusing on GenAI applications like Perplexity or Lovable. Tier 1 beneficiaries - Providers of foundation designs (e.g., OpenAI or Anthropic), design management platforms (e.g., AWS Sagemaker, Google Vertex or Microsoft Azure AI), information management tools (e.g., bphomesteading.com MongoDB or Snowflake), cloud computing and information center operations (e.g., Azure, AWS, Equinix or Digital Realty), AI consultants and combination services (e.g., Accenture or Capgemini), and edge computing (e.g., Advantech or HPE). Tier 2 recipients - Those whose products and services frequently support tier 1 services, including suppliers of chips (e.g., NVIDIA or AMD), network and server devices (e.g., Arista Networks, Huawei or Belden), server cooling innovations (e.g., Vertiv or Schneider Electric). Tier 3 beneficiaries - Those whose services and products frequently support tier 2 services, such as providers of electronic style automation software application service providers for chip design (e.g., Cadence or Synopsis), semiconductor fabrication (e.g., TSMC), heat exchangers for cooling technologies, and electrical grid technology (e.g., Siemens Energy or ABB). Tier 4 beneficiaries and beyond - Companies that continue to support the tier above them, such as lithography systems (tier-4) essential for semiconductor fabrication machines (e.g., AMSL) or companies that offer these providers (tier-5) with lithography optics (e.g., Zeiss).
    Winners and losers along the generative AI worth chain

    The increase of models like DeepSeek R1 indicates a prospective shift in the generative AI value chain, challenging existing market characteristics and improving expectations for profitability and competitive advantage. If more models with comparable capabilities emerge, certain players might benefit while others deal with increasing pressure.

    Below, IoT Analytics evaluates the key winners and most likely losers based on the innovations presented by DeepSeek R1 and the wider pattern towards open, affordable designs. This evaluation considers the possible long-lasting impact of such designs on the value chain instead of the instant impacts of R1 alone.

    Clear winners

    End users

    Why these developments are positive: The availability of more and more affordable designs will eventually lower costs for the end-users and make AI more available. Why these innovations are negative: No clear argument. Our take: DeepSeek represents AI development that eventually benefits the end users of this innovation.
    GenAI application providers

    Why these developments are positive: Startups building applications on top of foundation designs will have more options to select from as more designs come online. As mentioned above, DeepSeek R1 is without a doubt less expensive than OpenAI’s o1 design, and though thinking models are hardly ever utilized in an application context, it reveals that continuous advancements and innovation enhance the models and make them cheaper. Why these innovations are unfavorable: No clear argument. Our take: The availability of more and less expensive models will eventually decrease the cost of consisting of GenAI functions in applications.
    Likely winners

    Edge AI/edge computing business

    Why these developments are favorable: During Microsoft’s current revenues call, Satya Nadella explained that “AI will be a lot more common,” as more work will run in your area. The distilled smaller sized models that DeepSeek released alongside the effective R1 model are small enough to operate on many edge devices. While little, the 1.5 B, 7B, and 14B models are likewise comparably powerful thinking models. They can fit on a laptop and other less powerful devices, e.g., IPCs and industrial gateways. These distilled designs have already been downloaded from Hugging Face numerous thousands of times. Why these innovations are negative: No clear argument. Our take: The distilled models of DeepSeek R1 that fit on less effective hardware (70B and below) were downloaded more than 1 million times on HuggingFace alone. This reveals a strong interest in releasing models locally. Edge computing makers with edge AI services like Italy-based Eurotech, and Taiwan-based Advantech will stand to profit. Chip business that specialize in edge computing chips such as AMD, ARM, Qualcomm, and even Intel, may also benefit. Nvidia likewise runs in this market sector.
    Note: IoT Analytics’ SPS 2024 Event Report (published in January 2025) explores the current commercial edge AI trends, as seen at the SPS 2024 fair in Nuremberg, Germany.

    Data management providers

    Why these innovations are favorable: There is no AI without information. To establish applications utilizing open models, adopters will require a myriad of information for training and throughout release, requiring appropriate information management. Why these developments are negative: No clear argument. Our take: Data management is getting more crucial as the variety of various AI models boosts. Data management business like MongoDB, Databricks and Snowflake as well as the respective offerings from hyperscalers will stand to profit.
    GenAI companies

    Why these innovations are positive: The unexpected development of DeepSeek as a leading gamer in the (western) AI environment shows that the intricacy of GenAI will likely grow for a long time. The greater availability of different designs can lead to more complexity, driving more need for services. Why these developments are negative: When leading designs like DeepSeek R1 are available free of charge, the ease of experimentation and execution might limit the requirement for combination services. Our take: As brand-new innovations pertain to the market, GenAI services demand increases as business attempt to comprehend how to best utilize open designs for their service.
    Neutral

    Cloud computing suppliers

    Why these innovations are favorable: Cloud players rushed to consist of DeepSeek R1 in their design management platforms. Microsoft included it in their Azure AI Foundry, and AWS enabled it in Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Sagemaker. While the hyperscalers invest heavily in OpenAI and Anthropic (respectively), they are likewise model agnostic and allow hundreds of various models to be hosted natively in their design zoos. Training and fine-tuning will continue to occur in the cloud. However, as models end up being more effective, less financial investment (capital expenditure) will be required, which will increase earnings margins for hyperscalers. Why these developments are negative: More designs are expected to be deployed at the edge as the edge ends up being more powerful and designs more efficient. Inference is likely to move towards the edge moving forward. The expense of training advanced models is likewise anticipated to decrease further. Our take: Smaller, more effective designs are ending up being more crucial. This lowers the demand for effective cloud computing both for training and wavedream.wiki reasoning which may be balanced out by greater total need and lower CAPEX requirements.
    EDA Software providers

    Why these developments are favorable: Demand for new AI chip designs will increase as AI work become more specialized. EDA tools will be critical for creating effective, smaller-scale chips tailored for edge and distributed AI reasoning Why these developments are negative: The move towards smaller, less resource-intensive designs might lower the demand for developing advanced, high-complexity chips enhanced for enormous data centers, potentially leading to lowered licensing of EDA tools for high-performance GPUs and ASICs. Our take: EDA software service providers like Synopsys and Cadence might benefit in the long term as AI expertise grows and drives need for brand-new chip designs for edge, customer, and affordable AI workloads. However, the market might need to adapt to moving requirements, focusing less on big data center GPUs and more on smaller, effective AI hardware.
    Likely losers

    AI chip business

    Why these innovations are positive: The presumably lower training expenses for models like DeepSeek R1 could eventually increase the overall need for AI chips. Some described the Jevson paradox, the concept that effectiveness causes more require for a resource. As the training and reasoning of AI models end up being more effective, the demand could increase as greater performance results in reduce costs. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet shared a similar line of thinking: “A lower cost of AI could suggest more applications, more applications implies more demand in time. We see that as an opportunity for more chips demand.” Why these innovations are unfavorable: The allegedly lower expenses for DeepSeek R1 are based mainly on the need for less advanced GPUs for training. That puts some doubt on the sustainability of massive jobs (such as the just recently announced Stargate task) and the capital expenditure spending of tech companies mainly earmarked for purchasing AI chips. Our take: IoT Analytics research study for its latest Generative AI Market Report 2025-2030 (released January 2025) discovered that NVIDIA is leading the data center GPU market with a market share of 92%. NVIDIA’s monopoly identifies that market. However, that likewise shows how strongly NVIDA’s faith is connected to the ongoing growth of costs on information center GPUs. If less hardware is required to train and deploy designs, then this might seriously deteriorate NVIDIA’s growth story.
    Other classifications connected to information centers (Networking equipment, electrical grid technologies, electricity providers, and heat exchangers)

    Like AI chips, designs are most likely to become cheaper to train and more effective to release, akropolistravel.com so the expectation for further data center infrastructure build-out (e.g., networking equipment, cooling systems, and power supply services) would reduce appropriately. If less high-end GPUs are needed, large-capacity information centers might scale back their financial investments in associated infrastructure, potentially impacting need for supporting innovations. This would put pressure on companies that provide important elements, most notably networking hardware, power systems, and cooling solutions.

    Clear losers

    Proprietary model companies

    Why these developments are favorable: No clear argument. Why these innovations are unfavorable: The GenAI companies that have gathered billions of dollars of funding for their proprietary designs, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, stand to lose. Even if they develop and release more open designs, this would still cut into the revenue flow as it stands today. Further, while some framed DeepSeek as a “side task of some quants” (quantitative analysts), the release of DeepSeek’s effective V3 and then R1 models proved far beyond that sentiment. The question going forward: What is the moat of exclusive model service providers if innovative designs like DeepSeek’s are getting launched free of charge and become completely open and fine-tunable? Our take: DeepSeek released powerful models free of charge (for regional implementation) or extremely inexpensive (their API is an order of magnitude more budget friendly than similar models). Companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere will deal with progressively strong competitors from gamers that launch free and customizable innovative models, like Meta and DeepSeek.
    Analyst takeaway and outlook

    The emergence of DeepSeek R1 strengthens an essential pattern in the GenAI space: open-weight, cost-efficient designs are ending up being viable competitors to proprietary options. This shift challenges market presumptions and forces AI companies to rethink their value propositions.

    1. End users and GenAI application companies are the greatest winners.

    Cheaper, high-quality models like R1 lower AI adoption costs, benefiting both enterprises and consumers. Startups such as Perplexity and Lovable, which build applications on structure designs, now have more options and can substantially minimize API expenses (e.g., R1’s API is over 90% cheaper than OpenAI’s o1 design).

    2. Most specialists concur the stock exchange overreacted, but the innovation is genuine.

    While significant AI stocks dropped sharply after R1’s release (e.g., NVIDIA and Microsoft down 18% and 7.5%, respectively), many experts see this as an overreaction. However, DeepSeek R1 does mark a real breakthrough in expense performance and [smfsimple.com](https://www.smfsimple.com/ultimateportaldemo/index.php?action=profile