> DeepSeek is, as I feel currently, the sole AI company which is actually trying to innovate rather than top mere benchmarks.

I'd also include the other Chinese labs like Moonshot (behind Kimi) and Z.ai (behind GLM). They are innovating and continue openly sharing their research to the public. I believe the founder of Moonshot even shared 40 minute video on Twitter where he goes through techniques that powers Kimi.