Qwen 3 235B A22B vs DeepSeek R1: Build Fast or Think Deep?

Qwen 3 235B A22B and DeepSeek-R1 represent two distinct directions in large model design.
While Qwen 3 235B A22B focuses on delivering versatile, commercially viable AI capabilities with efficient deployment, DeepSeek-R1 pushes the boundaries of cognitive reasoning, suited for the most demanding scientific research and global AI services.

Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1: Basic Introduction

Qwen 3 235B A22B

Seamless dual-mode operation: Uniquely supports switching between thinking mode (for complex reasoning, math, and coding) and non-thinking mode (for efficient general dialogue) within a single model, ensuring optimal performance across diverse scenarios.

Agent integration expertise: Demonstrates strong tool-use abilities in both thinking and non-thinking modes, achieving leading performance among open-source models in complex agent-based tasks.

Deepseek R1

Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1: Benchmark

If you want to test it yourself, you can start a free trial on the Novita AI website.

Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1:Hardware Requirements

Although DeepSeek-R1 has a much larger total parameter count (671B vs. 235B), the number of active parameters during inference is 37B for DeepSeek-R1 vs. 22B for Qwen 3 235B A22B — showing that both use a Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture, but DeepSeek-R1 still activates more experts per forward pass.

Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1: Applications

Qwen 3 235B A22B

1. High-Performance Commercial Applications

• Ideal for businesses seeking cutting-edge AI capabilities without extreme hardware investments.
• Suitable for advanced customer service systems, content generation, and enterprise-level AI assistants.

2. Research and Development (R&D)

• Powerful enough for AI research projects, including NLP, reasoning tasks, and experimental model testing.
• Great choice for academic institutions and tech startups requiring strong reasoning but manageable costs.

3. Cloud Services and API Deployment

Suitable for SaaS companies offering AI-driven products such as intelligent writing tools, search engines, or personalized recommendation systems.

Can be deployed efficiently on cloud GPU clusters with reasonable costs (16×A100 or H100 setups).

Deepseek R1

1. Top-Tier Scientific Research

• Designed for cutting-edge AI research requiring massive computational power, such as training new models, exploring novel architectures, or pushing limits in reasoning and planning.

2. Ultra-Large-Scale Inference Systems

• Perfect for institutions or enterprises needing to serve massive user bases with heavy-duty AI workloads (e.g., search engines, global-scale AI services, or national AI projects).

3. Specialized Reasoning and Cognitive Simulation

With a very large active parameter set (37B per inference) and larger total parameters (671B), DeepSeek-R1 is suited for highly complex tasks like advanced chain-of-thought reasoning, multi-step problem-solving, scientific discovery assistance, and simulation of human-level decision making.

Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1: Tasks

Prompt: “You walk into a room and see a bed. On the bed there are two dogs, four cats, a giraffe, five cows, and a duck. There are also three chairs and a table. How many legs are on the floor?”

Qwen 3 235B A22B

Deepseek R1

Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1

How to Access Qwen 3 235B A22B VS Deepseek R1 via Novita API?

Step 1: Log In and Access the Model Library

Log in to your account and click on the Model Library button.

Step 2: Choose Your Model

Browse through the available options and select the model that suits your needs.

Step 3: Start Your Free Trial

Begin your free trial to explore the capabilities of the selected model.

Step 4: Get Your API Key

To authenticate with the API, we will provide you with a new API key. Entering the “Settings“ page, you can copy the API key as indicated in the image.

Step 5: Install the API

Install API using the package manager specific to your programming language.

After installation, import the necessary libraries into your development environment. Initialize the API with your API key to start interacting with Novita AI LLM. This is an example of using chat completions API for python users.

from openai import OpenAI
  
from openai import OpenAI
  
client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.novita.ai/v3/openai",
    api_key="<YOUR Novita AI API Key>",
)

model = "qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-fp8"
stream = True # or False
max_tokens = 2048
system_content = """Be a helpful assistant"""
temperature = 1
top_p = 1
min_p = 0
top_k = 50
presence_penalty = 0
frequency_penalty = 0
repetition_penalty = 1
response_format = { "type": "text" }

chat_completion_res = client.chat.completions.create(
    model=model,
    messages=[
        {
            "role": "system",
            "content": system_content,
        },
        {
            "role": "user",
            "content": "Hi there!",
        }
    ],
    stream=stream,
    max_tokens=max_tokens,
    temperature=temperature,
    top_p=top_p,
    presence_penalty=presence_penalty,
    frequency_penalty=frequency_penalty,
    response_format=response_format,
    extra_body={
      "top_k": top_k,
      "repetition_penalty": repetition_penalty,
      "min_p": min_p
    }
  )

if stream:
    for chunk in chat_completion_res:
        print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="")
else:
    print(chat_completion_res.choices[0].message.content)
  
  

If you need a high-performance, cost-effective solution for commercial AI products, Qwen 3 235B A22B is the ideal choice.
If you aim for top-level AI research or ultra-large inference systems, DeepSeek-R1’s sheer scale and reasoning power will better match your ambitions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Novita AI is an AI cloud platform that offers developers an easy way to deploy AI models using our simple API, while also providing the affordable and reliable GPU cloud for building and scaling.

Recommended Reading

• DeepSeek R1 vs QwQ-32B: RL-Powered Precision vs Efficiency
• Novita AI Now Supports OpenAI Agents SDK
• Llama 3.2 3B vs DeepSeek V3: Comparing Efficiency and Performance.