DeepSeek R1: Six Weeks Later

By C.W. Jameson · Published 20 March 2026 · Last reviewed 20 March 2026

The 2025 January release of R1 changed three things: the floor for open-weights reasoning, the confidence of Chinese AI labs, and the board slide at every US lab.

What changed in the open-weights reasoning landscape after DeepSeek R1's release in January 2025 and the wave of derivatives it triggered.