Databricks Adds DeepSeek V4.1 Flash for Text-and-Image AI Requests

Organizations using Databricks now have a new route for AI requests that combine text and images. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash became available on Unity Gateway through Databricks’ Foundation Model APIs on September 11, one day after DeepSeek announced the model and opened access through its own API.

Databricks lists V4.1 Flash as supporting text and image inputs on Unity Gateway. DeepSeek says the model has native visual understanding and is available on its API under the model name deepseek-flash.

DeepSeek describes V4.1 Flash as a 552-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model. It says 8 billion input parameters and 16 billion output parameters are active, and presents the design as part of a new architecture family built for faster inference and higher throughput.

What the two providers currently offer

• Databricks: V4.1 Flash on Unity Gateway with text and image inputs through Foundation Model APIs.
• DeepSeek: direct API access using the deepseek-flash model name, with native multimodal support.

The September 11 release note does not mean every Databricks workspace receives the model simultaneously. Databricks says its releases are staged and an account might not be updated until a week or more after an initial release date. It also says customers are responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable terms.

For teams already using Databricks’ model interface, the addition places DeepSeek’s new multimodal model alongside their existing platform access. The immediate constraint is rollout timing: a model can be listed in release notes before a particular workspace receives the update.