DeepSeek in Healthcare: Revealing Opportunities and Steering Challenges of a New Open-Source Artificial Intelligence Frontier

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has driven several advancements in healthcare, with large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft's Copilot demonstrating potential in clinical decision support, medical education, and research acceleration. However, their closed-source architecture, high computational costs, and limited adaptability to specialized medical contexts remained key barriers to universal adoption. Now, with the rise of DeepSeek's DeepThink (R1), an open-source LLM, gaining prominence since mid-January 2025, new opportunities and challenges emerge for healthcare integration and AI-driven research. Unlike proprietary models, DeepSeek fosters continuous…