A mystery AI model has developers buzzing: Is this DeepSeek’s latest blockbuster?

try{ var _=i o; . if(!_||_&&typeof _==="object"&&_.expiry Up 31%+, this AI-picked energy infrastructure play is a Middle East conflict win Oil resumes climb after previous session’s respite as Iran supply fears persist Wall Street extends this week’s rebound a day ahead of Fed interest rate decision Oil inventories seen falling to record lows in April amid Hormuz disruptions 55% Off - FLASH SALE (South Africa Philippines Nigeria) 55% Off - FLASH SALE A mystery AI model has developers buzzing: Is this DeepSeek’s latest blockbuster? By Economy Published 03/17/2026, 11:07 PM Updated 03/17/2026, 11:12 PM A mystery AI model has developers buzzing: Is this DeepSeek’s latest blockbuster? 0 By Eduardo Baptista BEIJING, March 18 - A powerful artificial intelligence model that appeared anonymously on a developer platform last week has sparked speculation that Chinese startup DeepSeek may be quietly testing its next-generation system ahead of an official launch. The free model, called Hunter Alpha, surfaced on the AI gateway platform OpenRouter on March 11 without any developer attribution and was later described by the platform as a "stealth model." During tests conducted by Reuters, the Hunter Alpha chatbot described itself as "a Chinese AI model primarily trained in Chinese" and said its training data extended to May 2025, the same knowledge cutoff point reported by DeepSeek’s own chatbot. When asked about its creator, however, the system declined to identify its developer. "I only know my name, my parameter scale and my context window length," the chatbot said. Neither DeepSeek nor OpenRouter has identified the model’s creator and they did not respond to requests for comment. Hunter Alpha’s profile page describes it as a 1-trillion-parameter model, meaning it was trained using roughly one trillion adjustable values that determine how the system processes language and generates responses. Models with more parameters generally require significantly more computing power to op...