5 ms·

Given that MiMo is as cheap as Deepseek ( previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282814 ) mul

Given that MiMo is as cheap as Deepseek ( previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48282814 ) multiplying that by 3x for ultra speed is still shockingly cheap.

miroljub 4mo ago
MiMo and DeepSeek are not cheap. Anthropic and OpenAI are expensive for what they provide.
- ignoramous 4mo ago
  The Chinese "Neijuan" is real & well reported: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/what-is-involution-chinas-race-to-the-bottom-competition-trend-2025-09-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/what-i... It is another thing the BigLabs accuse open weight models of benefiting from distillation & other techniques & essentially avoid higher training costs (which typically bleed into bills end users pay for inference). Ex A: https://www.anthropic.com/research/2028-ai-leadership https://www.anthropic.com/research/2028-ai-leadership Ex B: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/openai-accuses-deepseek-distilling-us-models-gain-advantage-bloomberg-news-2026-02-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/openai-accuses-deepseek-...
  - flexagoon 4mo ago
    True, but why would end users care about that? If anything, training on synthetic AI output is more ethical than on scraped human works (of course, not to say the Chinese labs aren't doing the latter)
  - trollbridge 4mo ago
    We buy cheap Chinese goods all the time. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. In this case, at least it’s threatening multimillion dollar salary jobs instead of entire towns of working class people in America or Mexico. And the Chinese labs actually release their weights. You could call it… open AI.
    - ncr100 4mo ago
      Lololol.
  - overfeed 4mo ago
    Big labs ripped videos off YouTube without caring about the ToS, and grabbed as much published literature they could get their hands on, regardless of legality (Books3, The Pile). The goal of "democratizing human knowledge" by way of thinking machines is far too noble to worry about frivolities like copyright and authorial consent, they said. Until it was their output being exploited, and their earning potential threatened.
  - amunozo 4mo ago
    Chinese are also simply better at making a lot of things cheaper, e.g. solar panels or electric vehicles.
  - drawfloat 4mo ago
    We just had years of US model providers arguing it was fine to rip off the world’s cultural output for their own profit, why should their work be treated any different?
- chrismustcode 4mo ago
  You don't consider Input $0.435 Output $0.87 cache read $0.003625 per million tokens for near frontier intelligence cheap?
  - miroljub 4mo ago
    No. They still have enormous profit margins on inference with these prices.
    - guilamu 4mo ago
      Any source to backup this claim, pretty please?
      - miroljub 4mo ago
        Source? There are a countless number of providers serving open weight models for fun and profit.
    - handfuloflight 4mo ago
      Their margins doesn't impact my own assessment of end user pricing as cheap.
    - HDBaseT 4mo ago
      I highly doubt there is any margin on those inference pricing.
      - miroljub 4mo ago
        > I highly doubt there is any margin on those inference pricing. And yet, OpenCode Go offers DeepSeek flash 6 times cheaper than DeepSeek itself. And they claim they are still profitable.
        nchmy 4mo ago
        Part of their model is that not everyone will use their entire quota each month. I don't think I will. I use under $1/day with deepseek v4 flash. We get $60 for the $10 sub.
- tmaly 4mo ago
  Energy is likely more abundant in China. I am not sure about compute, but that must be part of reason for such drastic price differences.
  - amunozo 4mo ago
    They also don't have to inflate profits for a coming IPO.
  - SwellJoe 4mo ago
    They're leaving us in the dust on solar, while our current administration is still trying to put people in the ground to dig up more coal and die of black lung. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China
    - diordiderot 4mo ago
      They're building more coal than anyone. Also more nuclear than anyone, which one must assume you hate, because preferring solar requires you don't actually understand thing
      - yxhuvud 4mo ago
        Energy from coal in China decreased last year. The change is happening very quickly.

miroljub 4mo ago

MiMo and DeepSeek are not cheap. Anthropic and OpenAI are expensive for what they provide.

ignoramous 4mo ago
The Chinese "Neijuan" is real & well reported: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/what-is-involution-chinas-race-to-the-bottom-competition-trend-2025-09-14/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/what-i... It is another thing the BigLabs accuse open weight models of benefiting from distillation & other techniques & essentially avoid higher training costs (which typically bleed into bills end users pay for inference). Ex A: https://www.anthropic.com/research/2028-ai-leadership https://www.anthropic.com/research/2028-ai-leadership Ex B: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/openai-accuses-deepseek-distilling-us-models-gain-advantage-bloomberg-news-2026-02-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/openai-accuses-deepseek-...
- flexagoon 4mo ago
  True, but why would end users care about that? If anything, training on synthetic AI output is more ethical than on scraped human works (of course, not to say the Chinese labs aren't doing the latter)
- trollbridge 4mo ago
  We buy cheap Chinese goods all the time. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. In this case, at least it’s threatening multimillion dollar salary jobs instead of entire towns of working class people in America or Mexico. And the Chinese labs actually release their weights. You could call it… open AI.
  - ncr100 4mo ago
    Lololol.
- overfeed 4mo ago
  Big labs ripped videos off YouTube without caring about the ToS, and grabbed as much published literature they could get their hands on, regardless of legality (Books3, The Pile). The goal of "democratizing human knowledge" by way of thinking machines is far too noble to worry about frivolities like copyright and authorial consent, they said. Until it was their output being exploited, and their earning potential threatened.
- amunozo 4mo ago
  Chinese are also simply better at making a lot of things cheaper, e.g. solar panels or electric vehicles.
- drawfloat 4mo ago
  We just had years of US model providers arguing it was fine to rip off the world’s cultural output for their own profit, why should their work be treated any different?
chrismustcode 4mo ago
You don't consider Input $0.435 Output $0.87 cache read $0.003625 per million tokens for near frontier intelligence cheap?
- miroljub 4mo ago
  No. They still have enormous profit margins on inference with these prices.
  - guilamu 4mo ago
    Any source to backup this claim, pretty please?
    - miroljub 4mo ago
      Source? There are a countless number of providers serving open weight models for fun and profit.
  - handfuloflight 4mo ago
    Their margins doesn't impact my own assessment of end user pricing as cheap.
  - HDBaseT 4mo ago
    I highly doubt there is any margin on those inference pricing.
    - miroljub 4mo ago
      > I highly doubt there is any margin on those inference pricing. And yet, OpenCode Go offers DeepSeek flash 6 times cheaper than DeepSeek itself. And they claim they are still profitable.
      - nchmy 4mo ago
        Part of their model is that not everyone will use their entire quota each month. I don't think I will. I use under $1/day with deepseek v4 flash. We get $60 for the $10 sub.
tmaly 4mo ago
Energy is likely more abundant in China. I am not sure about compute, but that must be part of reason for such drastic price differences.
- amunozo 4mo ago
  They also don't have to inflate profits for a coming IPO.
- SwellJoe 4mo ago
  They're leaving us in the dust on solar, while our current administration is still trying to put people in the ground to dig up more coal and die of black lung. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China
  - diordiderot 4mo ago
    They're building more coal than anyone. Also more nuclear than anyone, which one must assume you hate, because preferring solar requires you don't actually understand thing
    - yxhuvud 4mo ago
      Energy from coal in China decreased last year. The change is happening very quickly.