Domestic AI compute comes online as DeepSeek updates Flash model
China’s AI compute news centered on new domestic computing capacity, DeepSeek model and API updates, chip-testing investment and a Tianjin-backed meteorological AI system.
• Pengcheng Cloud Brain III began trial operation in Shenzhen with 10,000P of domestic computing power online; public reports say it uses Huawei Ascend’s 384-supernode architecture and is planned to reach 16,000P when complete.
• China’s chip testing equipment makers are increasing investment as AI-driven demand brings more attention to semiconductor testers.
• DeepSeek updated V4.1 Flash to V4.1-Flash-1017 across its web interface, app and API, saying API calls and pricing remain unchanged while task runtime and output length are shorter.
• DeepSeek also launched Search and Fetch APIs using its self-developed search engine to provide real-time web content for agent and RAG applications.
• China’s Fengqing AI global short- and medium-range ensemble weather forecasting system V1.0 entered nationwide meteorological operations after training and iteration on a 100,000-card AI4S supercomputing cluster at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin.