It hasn’t been long since DeepSeek released its efficient yet low-cost models, causing a frenzy in the tech world. The AI startup has returned to the spotlight today, releasing a major upgrade to its V3 large language model in a quest to intensify competition with its Western counterparts.

The new model, called DeepSeek-V3-0324, has been made available through the AI development platform Hugging Face. The move marks the startup’s continued push to gain a foothold in the rapidly intensifying tech landscape.

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The updated model includes added parameters and improvements in coding and mathematical problem-solving. The company’s website has used the terms “enhanced reasoning capabilities, optimised front-end web development and upgraded Chinese writing proficiency”, to define its updates.

According to the South China Morning Post, this new version and DeepSeek V3 are both foundation models trained on vast data sets. These can be applied in different use cases, such as that of a chatbot.

DeepSeek data has shown that the updated model demonstrates notable benchmark improvements on tests such as the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME). The new version scored 59.4 compared with 39.6 for its predecessor on the test, while it achieved a 49.2 on LiveCodeBench, an increase of 10 points.

According to Häme University of Applied Sciences lecturer Kuittinen Petri, “Anthropic and OpenAI are in trouble.” He noted this when he tested out the new version and asked it to “create a great-looking responsive front page for AI company.” In response, the new version produced a mobile-friendly, accurately functioning website after coding 958 lines.

Petri further noted that “DeepSeek is doing all this with just [roughly] 2 per cent [of the] money resources of OpenAI”.

Another tester, Jasper Zhang, a Math Olympiad gold medalist from the University of California, Berkeley, checked the model with an AIME 2025 problem. According to him, “it solved it smoothly”.

“More confident open-source AI models will win in the end.”

-Jasper Zhang.

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11. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is a leader in AI-driven endpoint and cloud workload protection.  On March 25, BTIG upgraded the stock to “Buy” from Neutral with a $431 price target, stating that Street estimates for the cybersecurity company are too low.

“We are upgrading CRWD from a Neutral to a Buy Rating for two primary reasons. First, with the 7/19/2024 IT outage now eight months in the rearview mirror, we think CRWD has much better visibility on forecasts.”

The other reason the firm cited has been its potential for growth to reaccelerate in the second half of 2026.

“We see CRWD emerging as the cleanest platform play across the security software space,” BTIG analyst Gray Powell said in a note.

The company has been leading the core endpoint security market, which is valued at $16B. The analyst further added how recent fieldwork suggests that it could win in the Security Information and Event Management market, valued at $6B or more.

“To be clear, we are still skeptical when vendors claim their products can cover multiple pillars and buying centers within security budgets. That said, CRWD has demonstrated its dominance in the core endpoint security target market.”

10. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 83

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) is a leader in AI-powered cybersecurity. On March 24, Tal Liani from Bank of America Securities maintained a “Hold” rating on the stock with a price target of $215.00. The firm said that it had “positive” discussions with the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Dipak Golechha.

“Various strategies to drive platformization Management noted that platformization is less of a bundling and discounting tactic, rather it is a selling motion to remove friction points for customers consolidating on Palo Alto Networks.”

-Tal Liani wrote in a note to clients.

“To help promote platformization deals, the company is taking a few tactics: it solves deployment friction by assisting through deployment services, and eases the economic friction by offering upfront credits to avoid overlap between contracts. The vast majority of platform deals are not milestone-related, carrying ratable revenue recognition, which suggests not much volatility around revenue recognition as the company laps its first anniversary since launching its platformization program.”

Discussing the acquisition of Cloud security startup Wiz, the firm said it could also lead to some share gain.

“Management views the pending acquisition of Wiz by Google as a form of ‘co-opetition’ given its history with Google, running its Cloud services. The deal spells some opportunities for Palo Alto. First, Wiz ran on AWS management and there could be some friction with customers, as it migrates to GCP. In addition, the acquisition could spark concerns among enterprises whether Wiz would remain a multi-Cloud provider. On the fundamental front, Wiz gained share by focusing on Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), while Palo Alto made a long-term focus on a wider set of services, expanding the number of modules and consolidating its Cloud business under its Cortex security operations umbrella.”