DeepSeek Made Crystal Clear · chapter 2: The Four Faces of DeepSeek
The four faces
2026-09-07
Faces 1 and 2 share DeepSeek's own infrastructure and privacy policy. Faces 3 and 4 branch off the same open weights onto infrastructure DeepSeek does not operate.
Below: the paragraph from the book that builds this idea, then the diagram itself (Figure 2.1), and a recap. About a minute of reading.
This is the face almost nobody in the reader research mentions when they worry about DeepSeek's China ties, which is exactly why it belongs in this chapter's title. It is a real, legal, MIT-licensed option, not a workaround or a gray area. Chapter 8 covers what is actually published and what running it seriously requires in hardware.
Recap
- The idea: Faces 1 and 2 share DeepSeek's own infrastructure and privacy policy.
- The picture: Figure 2.1, from chapter 2 ("The Four Faces of DeepSeek") of DeepSeek Made Crystal Clear.
- Go deeper: the chapter builds this step by step, with recipes and sources at the end.
This diagram is one of many in DeepSeek Made Crystal Clear.
Every chapter opens with the gist, draws the hard ideas, and ends with recipes and sources.
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