The Gods Return for Lunar New Year: MiniMax 2.5 & GLM-5 Light Up the Sky, Setting the Stage for DeepSeek V4?

The 2026 "AI Spring Festival Gala" has officially begun, and it's destined to be one for the history books.

Just as the industry held its breath for DeepSeek, competitors decided to strike first. MiniMax 2.5 and GLM-5 have dropped back-to-back, igniting a collective explosion of Chinese AI models.

But let's be real: this doesn't feel like a siege. It feels like a grand opening act. The entire ecosystem is putting on its best show, rolling out the red carpet for the one true king everyone is waiting for—DeepSeek V4.

1. Fireworks in the Sky: The Opening Acts

While DeepSeek remained silent (mostly), others lit up the night:

MiniMax 2.5 (Hailuo AI): Doubling down on what they do best—being human. With breakthroughs in Music and Speech 2.5, they are aggressively targeting the consumer market's "New Year's Eve" attention. It's fast, it's fun, and it's frighteningly realistic.
GLM-5 (Zhipu AI): The academic heavyweight strikes back. Targeting GPT-5 level reasoning, GLM-5 is here to solidify its dominance in enterprise and research sectors. It's the "hardcore" counter-balance to MiniMax's "vibe".

2. DeepSeek's "Silent" Response: The 1M Flex

Faced with this barrage of releases, DeepSeek didn't panic. They didn't rush V4. Instead, they quietly pushed a single update: 1M Token Context Unlocked.

It was a masterclass in "less is more". No press conference, no hype video. Just a feature unlock that says, "We haven't even played our ace card yet, and V3 is already enough to handle you." This move didn't dampen expectations for V4; it sent them through the roof.

3. Why Now?

Why is everyone rushing to release right before the holidays?

The Pre-V4 Rush: Everyone knows DeepSeek V4 (expected mid-March) is going to be a nuclear event. Releasing before V4 is the only way to get any oxygen in the room.
A Mature Ecosystem: 2026 marks the end of zero-sum games. GLM takes B-side, MiniMax takes C-side, and DeepSeek takes the Open Source/AGI crown. The Chinese AI landscape has never looked this healthy—or this formidable.

The Final Suspense

The warm-up is over. The crowd is warmed up.

Now, only one question remains: When DeepSeek V4 finally descends from the clouds, what kind of shockwave will it bring? Will it be the legendary MoE architecture? Or a complete paradigm shift beyond Transformers?

Grab your popcorn. The real show is just starting.

[Stay Tuned]

Track the V4 countdown and get the first API keys at: 👉 deepseekv4.app