Microsoft confirmed it will bring the DeepSeek R1 model to Azure cloud and GitHub in a move that it hopes will lessen its reliance on OpenAI's models.

Distilled R1 models can now run locally on Copilot Plus PCs, starting with Qualcomm Snapdragon X first and Intel chips later. This brings a lot more AI capabilities to Windows, and it’s something Microsoft was already working on with its Phi Silica language models.

Despite the controversy surrounding the Chinese open-source model, it has received the blessing of US companies that say their versions of it are safer and feature less censorship.