SHENZHEN -- Chinese all-in-one social media app Weixin, operated by tech powerhouse Tencent, has officially begun a gray-box test to integrate the DeepSeek-R1 model into its search function, the company announced on Feb 16.

Tencent stated that users selected for the test can access the DeepSeek-R1 model for free through the Weixin AI search function. By leveraging rich content from the Weixin ecosystem, including public accounts, as well as high-quality content from across the internet, this integration provides users with a more diverse search experience and delivers more comprehensive and accurate answers.

"For platforms like Weixin, which have a large volume of public accounts, articles and data, manually organizing text information is very time-consuming. With AI support, ordinary users can access information more conveniently," said a PhD student from the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University.

China's tech giant Baidu announced on the same day that its search and AgentBuilder platforms would fully integrate the search capabilities of DeepSeek and its own ERNIE foundation model.

Search users will have free access to the deep search functions of both models, while developers on the AgentBuilder platform can call the DeepSeek model at any time to create and fine-tune intelligent agents, according to Baidu.

DeepSeek has recently gained widespread attention for its impressive inference performance, cost-effectiveness, and open-source advantages. However, this success has also led to challenges, such as server overloads due to high levels of traffic. In response, there has been a rise in the development of additional services built on DeepSeek.

Major cloud service providers like Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Baidu AI Cloud have integrated DeepSeek's large models into their platforms, while AI chip manufacturers and companies across the computing power supply chain have successfully integrated with DeepSeek.

The momentum surrounding DeepSeek continues to grow, rapidly expanding its ecosystem and invigorating the AI industry chain. Diverse applications from industries including office software, automotive, healthcare, and finance have announced plans to adopt DeepSeek.

Futian district in Southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen has introduced 70 smart employees powered by DeepSeek, covering the entire chain of government services. These employees handle a variety of tasks, including document processing, public services, emergency management and investment promotion, offering precise analysis of 240 government service scenarios.

In the healthcare sector, South China Hospital of Shenzhen University is building an intelligent system with DeepSeek that integrates clinical care, research, and operations management to improve overall efficiency. In the future, AI agents will act as digital avatars for doctors and nurses, significantly easing patient waiting times in the hospital.

Chinese automaker Chery Group recently announced a deep technological collaboration with DeepSeek on the intelligent large model system. This includes the Lion AI smart cabin system, which will leverage DeepSeek's technology for more precise voice command responses and other smart applications.

"DeepSeek's open-source initiative will make AI as accessible as water, electricity and the internet," said Wu Fei, director of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at Zhejiang University.

Anyone can now download and deploy related open-source models directly from the DeepSeek website, which has allowed many domestic chips, cloud computing, and application companies and platforms to quickly adapt to DeepSeek models, helping it rapidly become a phenomenon in AI applications, according to Wu.

The deep integration of DeepSeek not only helps accelerate the resolution of pressing challenges faced during the digital and intelligent transformation of traditional industries, but also aids in bridging the "intelligence gap", allowing society to share the technological dividends brought by AI development, according to Zhai Yun, a researcher at the central Party school.