What does the peak price increase of DeepSeek mean? Goldman Sachs: Competition in domestic large models is returning to rationality.

Raising API prices during peak hours is becoming an important signal of shifting competition logic in the domestic large model industry.

In a July 3 research note, Goldman Sachs pointed out that DeepSeek's peak-hour price adjustments since mid-July do not indicate weakening demand. Instead, they reflect sustained strong demand for domestic AI models and tightening computing power resources, with industry competition gradually shifting from early aggressive price wars toward a more rational pricing framework.

According to the plan, peak hours are 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM, with API prices raised to double the off-peak rate; off-peak prices for V4 Pro and Flash versions remain unchanged. Goldman Sachs estimates that the adjusted blended average prices are approximately $0.35 and $0.12 per million tokens.

This change means that the competitive focus of domestic large model companies is shifting from pure price competition to a comprehensive contest of cost control, computing power utilization efficiency, and commercialization capabilities.

More critically, this may mark the end of the aggressive price competition that has persisted since late April 2026. Previously, industry prices were compressed to zero margin or even loss levels, but as inference costs are gradually repriced by the market, the overall pricing system is beginning to return to true costs.

Competitive Focus Shifts from Scale Expansion to Efficiency-Driven

Apart from pricing mechanisms, Goldman Sachs also notes that the competitive structure of the domestic large model industry is changing, with industry concentration gradually increasing.

Taking MiniMax as an example, its management believes that compared to large internet companies with massive systems, its advantages lie in a leaner organizational structure, higher infrastructure utilization efficiency, faster model iteration speed, and rapid response to emerging Agent application opportunities. For example, it quickly launched MaxClaw after the rise of OpenClaw's popularity, and simultaneously introduced products such as MiniMax Code.

Goldman Sachs points out that as industry competition shifts from one-time model capability battles to continuous product iteration and real commercial deployment, the importance of organizational efficiency and long-term ROI capabilities has significantly increased. Companies that can achieve sustained investment returns will gain an advantage in the new round of competition.

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