A conceptual image of DeepSeek that has recently stunned global tech industry. Photo: VCG

DeepSeek is being gradually adopted by various grassroots governments in China, with a town in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region starting using it to monitor and prevent poverty relapse, while a village in Northwest China's Gansu Province previously focused its application on assisting poverty alleviation efforts, said media reports.

Shanxin town in Xingye county of Yulin city was Guangxi's first town to deploy DeepSeek locally. It successfully deployed the DeepSeek-R1 model last Friday, according to the local media report from Xingye county on Monday cited by The Paper on Wednesday. By utilizing domestic computing architecture and tailored deployment solutions, the implementation addresses critical concerns regarding data privacy and response efficiency.

The localized deployment not only removes network delays and server congestion typical of cloud services but also ensures data security through local storage, laying solid groundwork for future intelligent applications, said the report.

Currently, DeepSeek is being used across multiple core functions in Shanxin town. It enhanced intelligent poverty relapse monitoring. The system dynamically and continuously tracks data from households that have lifted themselves out of poverty, to accurately detect families at risk of falling back into poverty and automatically generate assistance recommendations. This process improves analytical efficiency by 50 percent compared to traditional methods, said the report.

Additionally, it enhances conflict resolution efficiency. Through semantic analysis, the model rapidly matches similar historical cases and recommends mediation strategies, assisting officials in resolving disputes more effectively.

"DeepSeek's digital transformation at the town governance level is a forward-thinking step toward digital governance. Beyond intelligent monitoring, the technology holds multiple potential applications in poverty prevention," Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"For instance, it could help build a poverty prevention knowledge base, providing policy interpretation, skills training resources, and enhancing self-development capabilities for vulnerable households while assisting government employee training."

On February 12, China Power News Network reported previous communication challenges in Guoba village, Longnan city, Gansu Province, due to an aging and low-education population among those lifted out of poverty.

However, the village integrated DeepSeek with rural revitalization efforts, developing a digital rural intelligent "Agent" focused on four key areas: rural governance, ecological livability, rural services, and industrial development.

Initial operational feedback showed the Agent effectively assists village work teams in consolidating poverty alleviation achievements, significantly addressing rural governance challenges and advancing digital transformation, said the report.

"DeepSeek's cost-effectiveness and high performance allow underdeveloped regions to integrate this technology with minimal obstacles, achieving digital transformation of government services," Wang said. 

"It could also help bridge the knowledge gap between underdeveloped and advanced regions, leveraging successful experiences to further enhance service quality. Through innovative applications of technologies like DeepSeek, underdeveloped areas might achieve rapid advancements in public services, helping close regional disparities."