* Models like DeepSeek V4.1 Flash are much cheaper on DeepSeek their API directly because of the cache handeling is better. Neuralwatt can hit up to 98% but DeepSeek can do 99.x... That may not sound like a big difference but it quickly widens the gap on long tasks to grow 2x a 3x in price. DeepSeek their cache handeling is S-tier (with a ton of features, for instance 24h caching).

* The same issue is also present if you compare GLM 5.3 Flash with z.ai vs Neuralwatt. Its just way more cheaper from the source, then from Neuralwatt.

* The energy numbers from Neuralwatt are ... to be taken with a ton of salt. Past energy numbers had the same models (for instance) GLM 5.2 up to 6x cheaper in energy usage, then after they "fixed" issues with the energy numbers. In reality, those energy numbers are just a different form of billing, but not a actual representation of the energy usage of AI models. Things like profits are inside those energy numbers. So seeing 4kWH used for a model, does not mean that it uses 4Kwh.

Edit: That are some interesting downvotes ...

To answer the questions. It was stated by the CEO himself in one of the video blogs that the energy prices inc their profit margins. Regarding their published numbers ... I like to point out that this is the same company that had up to 6x cheaper energy numbers at the start of the year until they got updated. Again, its in one of those video blogs the CEO did. Its around the same time when they increased the price from $5/1kwh to $10/1kwh.

Yes, DeepSeek API is cheaper then Neuralwatt. I have done way too many comparisons between NW and other providers, regarding their prices. Over long sessions, that gap grows because of the differences in caching. You need to use the NW Flex option to reduce the impact but then your constantly waiting on responses (good for overnight work, not great in prime time).

Edit 2: I am getting a little bit fed up with the people who downvote and do not give their reasons for the downvotes.

I think NW's profits are mostly between what they pay for electricity and what they charge you for electricity. I don't think there's any need to look to conspiracies to explain billing errors.

This screams to be that Sol vs Terra model problem that OpenAI had. On paper half the price, in actual usage the price gap was so close for less good results, that everybody just spammed Sol.

A new regulation when importing into Europe, is that you need to show that import materials do not have toxic substances, ... on ... shipping labels (meaning the physical labels are free from harmful chemicals like BPA, PFAS, or PVC).

You need from every company that ships from China, they need to provide certificates that their shipping labels are toxic free.

Pulled from AI because i hate summarizing this...

* EU Ecolabel: The gold standard in Europe. It officially guarantees that a product has low aquatic toxicity, a reduced environmental footprint, and strictly limited hazardous substances throughout its life cycle.

* EN 13432 Certification: If using compostable labels (like those from Better Packaging Co.), this mandatory European standard ensures the label, liner, and adhesive break down safely in industrial composting without leaving toxic chemical residues.

* FSC (Forest Stewardship Council): Certifies that the paper backing and label face stock are sourced from sustainably managed, non-destructive forests.

* Phenol-Free / BPA-Free Declarations: Thermal printing labels must formally declare compliance with EU Regulation 2016/2235, which legally restricts bisphenols in thermal paper across the European Economic Area.

Its a mess of paperwork ... We have not talked about a ton of others, and those are on the import side.

We had some fun discussions about vitamine pill manufacturing, where importing materials made it "made in China".

But if we imported the raw material, and the capsules are made in Europe, and its mixed / bottled here. Well, made in Europe. But the prime materials that goes into your body is from China ... Does not matter.

But wait, if the capsules are made in China and mixed / bottled here in Europe, then its still made in China. Because the capsule somehow made the difference?! I do not remember the details but the amount of easy customer cheating that can be done with "Made in EU / Germany / France"..

I can go on with some of the insanities i get told about ... There are good rules but a lot are like this mix that make no sense, and you can almost hear that somebody pushed for exceptions when the rule was designed. So you get this odd crap that half the time makes no sense.

Hard to do business when the rules are often a issue.

One of the issues mentioned is PFAS, ... ignoring the fact that we have tons of PFAS pollutions already in our soils and not a darn thing is done.

We live very close to one of those sites, but its always excuses after excuse to solve. But PFAS on labels, panic, panic, ... The whole label issue can easily be solved by random sampling at import and a fine system. That automatically puts backpressure to fix it. No need for certificates left and right.

My point is that we keep making bureaucratic rules, that make every step more difficult for entrepreneurs here in Europe, instead of having a proper compliance setup. There is a entire industry around yearly audits (that cost 10.000's), like people who do it non-stop suddenly forget how to do it.

That is the issue ... Its not about rules but about barriers that make often setup in such a way to be barriers of entry/working, then compliance.

Tell me, how many times do you go to have your car checked. Yearly or every two years? That is one of those example where in some countries its yearly, other twice. Do the countries with two years have issues with their car park. No ... The result is the same but some people get to be inconvenienced twice (and pay twice). Do you understand it a bit more now?

There are rules and there are rules that add little beyond making everything difficult, when it can be solved in a better way.

Here is a idea, why not combine both? Have the advantage of Rust its build in checks and LLMs independent checks. Now you get both for a even more safe program.

Flash is about speed ... Flash models are supposed to be fast, way faster then their big brothers that are "better" but way slower.

Its just that up to now, getting more speed involved cutting back on the parameter count, what ended up making the Flash models more "dumber" in exchange for speed.

What we see with DS v4.1 Flash, is that DeepSeek has found a way to make a Flash model, that is 2x a 2.5x faster then the older Flash version, while increasing the intelligence (more parameters). To the point that it goes past Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 in most tests, with a blazing 250 to 400t/s.

AND its also priced as a Flash model (they even reduced the price back to almost old v4 Flash price), despite it now rivaling those 10x to 30x more expensive competitors.

The issue that people can not fit it into local setups, is not how companies design their models. They design it for their own needs. A old flash needed less parameters to be fast, and local users had the benefit of it fitting in 256GB memory.

Companies who run locally, are perfectly able to buy a few H200/B200 and get a setup that run a model that almost rivals Opus 5.0 in their office. How to say this without getting downvoted. People get way too fired up if a model does not fit, despite that they can still run the old v4.0, qwen 27b, 35b, 3.8 Next and other models. The fact that these models are being released for free, is already amazing by itself. I am still waiting to see what Anthropic and OpenAI and Google are releasing for free... O wait ... ;0

I agree with your broader point about Flash being about speed not total model size, but I think we should also point out that H200/B200's are seriously overkill for the "run a model in your office" scenario. That sort of hardware is optimized (in a roofline analysis sense) for running hundreds of concurrent sessions on a 24/7 basis. You're severely overpaying for your VRAM in basically any typical local-inference scenario, you should most likely be buying gear based on LPDDR and Flash memory instead which will slash your cost by orders of magnitude.

I simply mention what came to mind ;)

A quad 6000 with 96GB, can run this model at NVFP4. That is 60.000 Euro for the GPUs and lets be generous with another 20.000 for the rest of the system. The price of a single developer for a year.

Carrot: Free vacations? Merch? Benefits ...

Stick: Scared because taking actions against the Buy (aka you own nothing) is paramount to going in a fight with a entire industry.

Nope, because there's a stance in EULA's footnote (with extremely small letters) that you give up your rights to class action civil case.

Regardless, these sorts of things have been fought before, over and over. Often, courts don't care about an EULA when wrongful action has been taken.

The jurisdiction matters too, of course.

Yes, verified. I would not have said it otherwise.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/terms-of-service/

> 14.5. Class Action Waiver. > YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE AGREE THAT ARBITRATION WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION [...]

> Regardless, these sorts of things have been fought before, over and over.

This specific case BTW: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.47...

I'm no lawyer, but IMHO they probably will reply that Sony has indeed violated CA. AB 2426 (effective since 01-jan-2025) and that Sony illegally tried to restrict customer rights in the first place, as per McGill v. Citibank https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2017/s...

But it's Napoleonic civil code, so sometimes things don't work out as my common law brain thinks.

(It'll be interesting to read your California link.

We saw the same issue with GLM 5.2 when they still published publicly who the providers are on their website. Most ran FP8 but one was doing FP4, so you had this issue where one moment you had the better FP8 and another session you had the FP4 provider.

You can check the internet archive, it was in the FAQ part before they hide/removed it. So if you looked up the providers, and the published quants, yea, ...

Given that a lot of complaints are coming from people that felt OpenCode Go Flash feel like a step down compared to old OpenCode Go/DeepSeek API directly, it smells of a quantized down provider is mixed in.