Minsheng Securities: Upgrading of domestic models benefits AI education landing, focusing on the education IT industry chain.

Minsheng Securities released a research report stating that the upgrade of domestic models is beneficial for the implementation of AI education. With the rise of DeepSeek, on one hand, it significantly improves the performance of domestic models; on the other hand, open source and cost reductions are expected to accelerate the process of domestic AI applications landing. Focus on AI + education, the rapid development of overseas leader Duolingo can be seen as the potential of AI landing in the education field. Domestic AI + education companies have also combined their own advantages in vertical fields with AI to launch competitive products. It is recommended to pay attention to the education IT industry chain. Key points of Minsheng Securities: DeepSeek releases open-source large model R1, quickly breaks 30 million monthly active users On January 20, 2025, DeepSeek officially released DeepSeek-R1 and simultaneously open-sourced the model weights. DeepSeek-R1 used reinforcement learning technology on a large scale in the post-training phase, greatly improving the model's reasoning ability with very few annotated data. In tasks such as mathematics, code, and natural language reasoning, its performance is comparable to OpenAI o1 official version. Since DeepSeek released the R1 model on January 20, the number of users of this model has grown rapidly. According to AI Product Rankings data, as of the end of January, DeepSeek's monthly active users reached 33.7 million, quickly becoming the second in the country. Overseas AI + education leader Duolingo achieves sustained growth in performance with the help of AI Duolingo is a global leading language learning platform, and on September 25, 2024, it announced a major product innovation, launching two new AI-driven features - Video Call and Duolingo Adventures. In the "Video Call" feature, users can have conversations with Duolingo character Lily, and the conversation content will be flexibly adjusted according to the user's language level, allowing even beginners to easily practice conversations. With the introduction of AI features, the company continues to maintain strong growth in users and performance. As of 2024Q3, the company's monthly active users reached 113 million, with quarterly revenue reaching a new high of $190 million. Upgrade of domestic models is beneficial for the implementation of AI education With the emergence of DeepSeek, it has significantly improved the ability of domestic models on one hand, and on the other hand, through optimization of open source and inference costs, it is expected to accelerate the landing process of domestic AI applications. Regardless of domestic or foreign markets, education is a natural and important scenario for the implementation of AI. Domestic AI + education companies have introduced AI products in their own competitive fields (for example, Iflytek Co.,ltd. in the G/C end layout, Chengdu Jiafaantai Education Technology in smart teaching, Beijing Jingyeda Technology in teaching evaluation breakthrough), and with the support of domestic models, they are expected to accelerate product refinement and commercialization. Investment recommendation: Recommend focusing on Iflytek Co.,ltd. (002230.SZ), Chengdu Jiafaantai Education Technology (300559.SZ), Beijing Jingyeda Technology (003005.SZ), Beijing Shengtong Printing (002599.SZ), and other education IT industry chains. Risk warning: Risks of intensified industry competition, AI technology iteration progress falling short of expectations, risks of industry policy changes.