DeepSeek’s V4 Flash slashes coding costs and accelerates AI’s price race

DeepSeek released V4 Flash, a powerful coding model that charges pennies per output—about 28 cents versus roughly $25 for OpenAI’s Opus 4.8—marking a rapid commoditization of AI models as a price war spreads among frontier labs and big tech. As models become cheaper and more capable, buyers will prioritize cost and efficiency over brand, potentially weakening pricing power for top labs and boosting the case for automated “intelligent routers” that pick the best model for each task. OpenAI says massive usage can sustain profitability despite thinner margins, while the broader trend shows both the US and China pushing for abundant AI, with profitability still to be proven.