While the eye-popping profit margins are hypothetical, the reveal comes at a time when AI startup models and their profitability is a hot topic among technology investors

DeepSeek (DEEPSEEK) on Saturday claimed a theoretical daily cost-profit ratio of 545% related to its V3 and R1 models, but it warned that actual revenue would be much lower. The AI startup’s post on GitLab was the first time it disclosed any profit margin information from “inference” tasks,

Chinese artificial intelligence phenomenon DeepSeek revealed some financial numbers on Saturday, saying its “theoretical” profit margin could be more than five times costs, peeling back a layer of the secrecy that shrouds business models in the AI industry.