BEIJING, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek formally released its V4 Pro model on Thursday, pricing it several times higher than its V4 Flash model as it seeks to turn stronger benchmark performance into a premium flagship offering.

DeepSeek's V4-Pro-0813 is priced at $1.32 per million input tokens and $3.96 per million output tokens, according to independent benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis.

That is equivalent to about 9 times the input price and 14 times the output price of V4 Flash, which Artificial Analysis lists at $0.14 and $0.28, respectively.

DeepSeek said the V4-Pro-0813 substantially improves its capabilities for AI agents and is available through its API, app and web products.

The company also said it will raise API pricing for its V4 Pro and V4 Flash models and introduce peak and off-peak pricing.

DEEPSEEK HIGHER PRICING

The pricing puts a larger premium on DeepSeek's top model after its V4 Flash model, released last month, unexpectedly outperformed an April preview version of V4 Pro in several independent tests.

That was unusual because Pro is designed as the company's more capable product, suggesting DeepSeek had improved its technology rapidly between the preview release and the official launch.

Independent results now suggest the official V4 Pro release represents a meaningful step up.

Artificial Analysis gave the reasoning version of V4 Pro a score of 53 on its Intelligence Index, versus 40 for V4 Flash.

The index combines evaluations of nine features, such as agentic work tasks, tool use, coding, scientific reasoning and long-context performance.

DEEPSEEK LOOKS TO REGAIN MOMENTUM

DeepSeek became one of China's most closely watched AI companies after its R1 model went viral in early 2025, raising questions about whether powerful AI systems could be built at much lower cost than those of U.S. rivals.

Its early lead has since been challenged by a string of releases from Chinese competitors including Moonshot AI, Zhipu AI, MiniMax, Alibaba and ByteDance.

DeepSeek has also faced the harder task of turning its prominence into a lasting business. Reuters reported in July that the company was planning a new fundraising round at a valuation of about $74 billion, weeks after raising about $7.4 billion in its first outside financing round in June.

The fundraising marked a change for a company that had long avoided external capital. It also reflects the growing cost of competing in AI, which requires large investments in computer chips, data centres and specialised staff.

DeepSeek has said it aims to at least double staffing across departments, including data-centre and AI-agent teams. Reuters also reported in July that it had increased private hiring of chip-design engineers to develop its own AI chip, an effort that could reduce reliance on suppliers including Nvidia and Huawei.