Women Who AI

Run DeepSeek on your Laptop (Without Internet)

Feb 27, 2025By Leandra T
Leandra T

Ever wanted to run powerful AI models on your own computer without sharing your data or paying for API access? In this Women Who AI tutorial, we'll show you how to set up DeepSeek—an efficient open-source AI model—to run completely locally on your laptop.

Why Run AI Locally?

Privacy: Your data stays on your device
No subscription costs: Run AI tools without recurring payments
Energy efficiency: DeepSeek is optimized to use fewer resources
Independence: Work with AI even without internet access

Tutorial

Step 1: Install Ollama
Ollama is the lightweight application that allows you to run AI models locally.

Download Ollama from https://ollama.com/download
Follow the installation instructions for your operating system

Step 2: Run DeepSeek Locally
Open your terminal or command prompt. For those of you on a Mac who are new to the terminal, get there by clicking the magnifying glass in the top right corner of your screen.

Then run (type in and press enter):

ollama run deepseek-r1

Want a smaller, more efficient model? Specify the size:

ollama run deepseek-r1:1.5b

Step 3: Set Up a User-Friendly Interface
Let's install Open WebUI to interact with your model through a chat interface:

Make sure Python is installed on your computer

If needed, download from https://www.python.org/downloads/
Install Open WebUI using pip:
pip install open-webui

Note: The installation may take several minutes to complete.

Launch the web interface:
open-webui serve

Open your browser and go to: http://localhost:8080/
Create a username and password to secure your AI interface

Step 4: Start Building with Your Local AI
You're now running DeepSeek AI completely locally! Use it for:

  • Brainstorming your startup ideas
  • Drafting marketing copy
  • Analyzing data
  • Building prototypes
  • Testing AI features for your products