[SMM Computing Power Flash] DeepSeek V4 API Price Hike, Pro Cached Input Up More than 10x

SMM learned from cloud platform industry practitioners that demand for domestic server leases of less than one year is difficult to match with market resources, and suppliers generally prefer long-term contracts. Relevant sources suggested that short-term rental buyers may choose private cloud deployments with qualifications for handling classified data. SMM believes that the short-term rental supply-demand mismatch highlights that suppliers mainly lock in capacity through long-term agreements, while flexible short-term rentals remain scarce supply.

Computing power rental prices moved sideways today, with monthly rental and per-card-hour quotes for all models unchanged, mainly because no new resources were released into the market. Meanwhile, DeepSeek announced that it raised V4 series API pricing and introduced differentiated peak/off-peak pricing. Cached input pricing saw significant increases, well beyond the range of cost increases, signaling a pattern of testing the market with higher prices while leaving room for future anchoring. Frontline token businesses face a single pricing source and limited bargaining power, and need to closely monitor token price trends.

SMM has learned that short-term rental demand has emerged in the market for Huawei Ascend 910B series devices, with at least 64 GB of memory, a single unit, a two-month lease term, a budget based on market conditions, and a requirement that the equipment be relocated to a data center in North China for offline deployment. This demand is small in scale and short in duration, highlighting offline deployment and the compliance attributes of domestic computing power. SMM believes that short-term rental demand for Ascend models mostly involves project-based delivery, and the offline deployment requirement reflects the lessee’s preference for physical control over data and equipment.