When DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model in early 2025, it showed that strong AI no longer has to come only from a handful of large companies. Together with Llama, Qwen, Mistral and Gemma, it made open-weight models a serious option for businesses.
What "open-weight" means
The model's trained weights are published, so you can download and run it yourself — on your own server, in your cloud account, sometimes even on a laptop. Licences differ, so always check what commercial use is allowed.
Why businesses are interested
- Lower running costs at high volume, especially for simpler tasks.
- Privacy: sensitive data never leaves your infrastructure.
- Control: no surprise price changes or model retirements; you choose when to upgrade.
- Customisation: you can fine-tune the model on your own data and terminology.
- Offline and edge use: small models can run where there is no reliable internet.
When a hosted API is still the better choice
- You need the very best quality on complex reasoning or writing.
- Your volume is low, so paying per use is cheaper than running servers.
- You don't have anyone to maintain the infrastructure.
- You want to move fast and test an idea this week.
A common middle path
Many of our clients mix both: a top hosted model for difficult tasks, and a smaller open model for high-volume routine work like classification, extraction or first-draft replies. A simple router sends each request to the right model, which can cut costs significantly without hurting quality.
Things to check before choosing a model
- Licence: is commercial use allowed for your case?
- Quality on your data: test with real examples, not public benchmarks.
- Hardware: what GPU or CPU do you need for acceptable speed?
- Security: keep the model and its inputs inside your network if data is sensitive.
- Origin and policy: some organisations have rules about where models come from; check yours.
Looking ahead
Through 2027 and 2028 we expect small, efficient models to keep improving, making private, on-premise AI affordable for mid-sized businesses. The question will shift from "can we afford AI?" to "which model fits each task?"
Datix AI helps businesses compare models on their real data and deploy them securely. Contact us to plan yours.