Microsoft adds DeepSeek's R1 to Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, and plans to make a distilled, smaller version of R1 available to run locally on Copilot+ PCs soon
Microsoft has moved surprisingly quickly to bring R1 to its Azure customers. — Microsoft has moved surprisingly quickly to bring R1 to its Azure customers.
The VergeTom Warren
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft had already positioned Azure AI Foundry as a place where customers could switch among large language models, while Azure AI Studio’s broad release added support for GPT-4o and a lightweight Phi-3 model. Adding R1 extends that multi-model posture across both cloud development and GitHub.
The planned local release also connects Microsoft’s cloud AI tooling to its Copilot+ PC strategy: a distilled R1 variant would give developers and users another deployment target beyond Azure.
First-order effects
Azure AI Foundry customers and GitHub users gain Microsoft-supported access to DeepSeek’s R1, expanding the model choices available in Microsoft’s developer ecosystem.
Microsoft plans to bring a smaller R1 derivative to Copilot+ PCs, creating a local-running option alongside its cloud availability.
Second-order effects
Model providers competing for Azure AI workloads face a clearer incentive to differentiate on model performance, deployment flexibility, and integration rather than assume exclusive platform distribution.
Developers can more readily test the same model family across hosted and device-based environments, increasing the value of Microsoft’s tooling layer that connects those choices.
Third-order effects
If Microsoft continues adding external models while adapting them for local hardware, AI platforms may compete increasingly on orchestration and deployment reach rather than on a single preferred model.
The move is another step toward a more modular AI stack, where cloud and on-device inference are complementary deployment options rather than separate product categories.
The trend: AI platforms are becoming model-agnostic distribution layers that pair cloud access with smaller on-device variants for the same AI capabilities.
Huh, I did not see that happening. OTOH, DeepSeek *is* open source, so this makes some sense. www.windowscentral.com/software- app... #DeepSeek #Microsoft
Microsoft is making DeepSeek's R1 model available on Azure AI and GitHub today. Microsoft has moved surprisingly quickly to bring R1 to its Azure customers, and it's planning to bring a smaller distilled version to Copilot+ PCs too. Details below 👇 www.theverge.com/news/602162/…
This is actually super exciting. @Microsoft has made a distilled version of the @deepseek_ai R1 model available for on-device AI for Copilot+ PCs. @Qualcomm gets first dibs, followed by @Intel and others. 1.5B model is first, followed by a 7B and 14B. https://blogs.windows.com/..…
DeepSeek R1 is now live on Azure AI Foundry and @GitHub. Experience the power of advanced reasoning on a trusted, scalable AI platform with minimal infrastructure investment. Learn more: https://azure.microsoft.com/ ... #AzureAIFoundry [image]
> With these optimizations in place, the model is capable of a time to first token of 130 ms and a throughput rate of 16 tokens/s for short prompts (<64 tokens). This is for an 1.5b model @ int4. Not good results for Copilot+ PCs imo. (From https://blogs.windows.com/...)
> While the Qwen 1.5B release from DeepSeek does have an int4 variant, it does not directly map to the NPU due to presence of dynamic input shapes and behavior - all of which needed optimizations to make compatible and extract the best efficiency. Sigh. https://blogs.windows.com/…
Learn how to use DeepSeek-R1 on Azure with @langchain4j in our latest blog post! https://devblogs.microsoft.com/ ... Sample application is available at https://github.com/...
Distilled DeepSeek R1 models are coming to Copilot+ PCs, starting with Qualcomm Snapdragon X, followed by Intel Core Ultra 200V & others 👇 https://blogs.windows.com/...