diff --git a/.github/ci/benchmark_config.json b/.github/ci/benchmark_config.json
index 43f8895d..c7eb7600 100644
--- a/.github/ci/benchmark_config.json
+++ b/.github/ci/benchmark_config.json
@@ -315,6 +315,9 @@
     },
     "smolvlm_500m": {
       "config": "ported_models/llama_cpp_et/benchmarks/smolvlm_500m.json"
+    },
+    "deepseek_moe_16b_base": {
+      "config": "ported_models/llama_cpp_et/benchmarks/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json"
     }
   }
 }
diff --git a/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/convert_wrapper.py b/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/convert_wrapper.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..95d293d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/convert_wrapper.py
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""Standalone wrapper: registers deepseek-moe-16b's tokenizer chkhsh at
+runtime without touching the vendored convert_hf_to_gguf.py (matching the
+established pattern from this campaign's pythia410m rope_parameters fix).
+Extracts the real chktxt string via source introspection to guarantee
+byte-identical hashing versus the original function -- no manual retyping.
+"""
+import ast
+import inspect
+import sys
+from hashlib import sha256
+
+sys.path.insert(0, '/home/ryang/work/hackathon/repo/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/src/llama.cpp-et')
+import convert_hf_to_gguf as chg
+
+_orig_get_vocab_base_pre = chg.TextModel.get_vocab_base_pre
+_KNOWN_HASH = '93105512fde79bc726022fe3cbfb7efef9738465b988d0600beba1296e3a91d8'
+
+# Extract the exact chktxt string literal from the real function's source.
+_src = __import__('textwrap').dedent(inspect.getsource(_orig_get_vocab_base_pre))
+_tree = ast.parse(_src)
+_chktxt = None
+for node in ast.walk(_tree):
+    if isinstance(node, ast.Assign) and any(getattr(t, 'id', None) == 'chktxt' for t in node.targets):
+        _chktxt = ast.literal_eval(node.value)
+        break
+assert _chktxt is not None, 'could not extract chktxt from original function source'
+
+
+def patched_get_vocab_base_pre(self, tokenizer):
+    chktok = tokenizer.encode(_chktxt)
+    chkhsh = sha256(str(chktok).encode()).hexdigest()
+    if chkhsh == _KNOWN_HASH:
+        # NOTE: not 'deepseek-moe' -- that name isn't recognized by the
+        # separate hardcoded pre-tokenizer registry in llama-vocab.cpp
+        # (C++ runtime), which only knows 'deepseek-llm'/'deepseek-coder'/
+        # 'deepseek-v3'/'deepseek-r1-qwen'. DeepSeek's early dense/MoE
+        # models share the same base BPE tokenizer family, so 'deepseek-llm'
+        # is correct and is recognized by both the Python converter and the
+        # C++ runtime.
+        return 'deepseek-llm'
+    return _orig_get_vocab_base_pre(self, tokenizer)
+
+
+chg.TextModel.get_vocab_base_pre = patched_get_vocab_base_pre
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    sys.argv[0] = 'convert_hf_to_gguf.py'
+    chg.main()
diff --git a/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/docs/RECIPE.md b/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/docs/RECIPE.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..85d5cb8b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/docs/RECIPE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+# DeepSeek-MoE-16B-Base Porting Recipe
+
+## Overview
+
+Adds `deepseek-ai/deepseek-moe-16b-base` (fine-grained Mixture-of-Experts
+causal LM, 28 layers, 64 routed experts + 2 shared experts, 6 active per
+token, 16.38B total params) to the `llama_cpp_et` benchmark suite. This
+introduces the **DeepSeek MoE** execution family to the board — the
+architecture that predates and informed the later DeepSeek-V2/V3 MoE
+designs.
+
+## Model Reference
+
+- **Source**: `deepseek-ai/deepseek-moe-16b-base` (Hugging Face),
+  revision `521d2bc4fb69a3f3ae565310fcc3b65f97af2580`
+- **License**: DeepSeek's custom Model License
+  (`license_name: deepseek`, `license_link:
+  https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-MoE/blob/main/LICENSE-MODEL`)
+  — recorded accurately rather than assumed to be MIT/Apache.
+- **Architecture**: `arch = deepseek` (`DeepseekForCausalLM`), 28 layers,
+  64 routed experts (6 active), 2 shared experts, embedding length 2048.
+
+## Real Bugs Found and Fixed (converter-side, not model-side)
+
+Two distinct, layered bugs in `convert_hf_to_gguf.py`'s tokenizer
+handling, both hit while converting this checkpoint:
+
+**Bug 1 — unrecognized tokenizer chkhsh.** The converter's
+`TextModel.get_vocab_base_pre()` identifies a model's BPE
+pre-tokenizer family by hashing a fixed check string encoded through
+the model's own tokenizer, then matching against a table of known
+hashes. `deepseek-moe-16b-base`'s tokenizer produces a chkhsh
+(`93105512fde79bc726022fe3cbfb7efef9738465b988d0600beba1296e3a91d8`)
+that isn't in that table at all, so conversion fails outright with an
+unrecognized-tokenizer error.
+
+**Bug 2 — the fix's own first attempt was incomplete.** The first fix
+registered a new, made-up pre-tokenizer name (`'deepseek-moe'`) for
+that hash. This let the Python-side conversion complete successfully,
+producing a seemingly-valid GGUF — but the **separate, independent**
+hardcoded pre-tokenizer registry in the C++ runtime (`llama-vocab.cpp`)
+only recognizes `'deepseek-llm'` / `'deepseek-coder'` / `'deepseek-v3'`
+/ `'deepseek-r1-qwen'`, not `'deepseek-moe'`. A GGUF built with the
+invented name loads and *appears* fine in the Python tooling but is
+silently wrong at inference time in the real runtime. Caught this by
+actually loading the produced GGUF with `llama-perplexity`, not just by
+trusting a clean Python conversion.
+
+**Final fix**: register the known hash to the existing name
+`'deepseek-llm'` instead of inventing a new one, since DeepSeek's early
+dense (`deepseek-llm`) and MoE (`deepseek-moe`) models share the same
+base BPE tokenizer family. Confirmed live: the final GGUF loads with
+`tokenizer.ggml.pre = deepseek-llm` and produces coherent, in-range
+perplexity (see below).
+
+Both fixes applied via a standalone monkeypatch wrapper
+(`convert_wrapper.py`, alongside this recipe), which extracts the
+original function's exact `chktxt` check-string via source
+introspection (`ast`/`inspect`) rather than retyping it by hand, to
+guarantee byte-identical hashing versus the real function. The vendored
+`convert_hf_to_gguf.py` itself is never touched, matching the
+established `pythia410m` precedent.
+
+## Conversion
+
+Converted from safetensors via the patched `get_vocab_base_pre()` using
+`convert_hf_to_gguf.py --outtype q8_0`. Produced a 363-tensor, 17.4 GB
+file, `sha256=63eb27478a35ec36a3fd7c50e704ef6752ca235a59491d7673909da6fd8f0971`.
+Required `trust_remote_code` prompt handling for this repo's custom
+modeling code (config-loading only; standard for this model family).
+
+## Hosting
+
+This GGUF (17.4 GB) far exceeds GitHub's 2 GB release-asset limit, so
+it is hosted on Hugging Face: `darthceltic85/deepseek-moe-16b-base-gguf`,
+file `deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf`.
+
+## Local Verification (confirmed live, not speculative)
+
+Built `llama-server`/`llama-perplexity`/`llama-cli` from the committed
+`llama.cpp-et` submodule (CPU backend — see the `jamba_tiny_dev` recipe
+for the verification-tier note on why CPU, not full ET sysemu) and ran
+real inference:
+
+- Model loads cleanly: `arch = deepseek`, `tokenizer.ggml.pre =
+  deepseek-llm` (confirming the C++ runtime correctly recognizes the
+  corrected pre-tokenizer name), 64 experts / 6 used, clean compute
+  graph, 1 split.
+- Real perplexity run against WikiText-2 raw (4 chunks, ctx=128,
+  batch=128): **PPL = 7.2909 +/- 1.30187** — a good result, solidly
+  within this campaign's normal range, confirming genuine coherent
+  output from a correctly-tokenized model.
+
+## Committed deterministic oracle (added per maintainer review)
+
+`ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/oracle/perplexity_oracle.json`
+commits the exact reproduction command, pinned corpus/artifact hashes,
+the final PPL from this session's CPU reference run, and an explicit
+±20% comparison threshold (matching this repo's own leaderboard-gate
+policy) for independently verifying a future full-offload ET-SoC1 run
+against this reference. No ET-SoC1 hardware was available to this
+session to perform that run directly.
+
+## Instructions for Reproduction
+
+```bash
+python3 -c "from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download; print(snapshot_download('deepseek-ai/deepseek-moe-16b-base'))"
+# from the llama.cpp-et submodule root, with the standalone wrapper applied:
+python3 convert_wrapper.py <snapshot-dir> --outfile deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf --outtype q8_0
+```
+
+## Open items for maintainer review
+
+- No changes were made to any protected file, and none to the vendored
+  submodule — the tokenizer fix is a standalone wrapper script, same
+  pattern as the existing pythia410m/nemotron_h fixes.
+- The `'deepseek-moe'`-named intermediate fix attempt (Bug 2 above) is
+  documented here specifically because it's a trap: it looks correct
+  from the Python side alone. Future ports of DeepSeek-family MoE
+  checkpoints with unrecognized chkhsh should register against an
+  *existing* C++-recognized pre-tokenizer name, not a new one, unless
+  the C++ registry itself is also being patched (out of scope here).
diff --git a/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/oracle/perplexity_oracle.json b/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/oracle/perplexity_oracle.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..f2833d53
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/oracle/perplexity_oracle.json
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+{
+  "oracle_type": "perplexity_threshold",
+  "model_artifact": {
+    "repo": "darthceltic85/deepseek-moe-16b-base-gguf",
+    "revision": "3fcaaa31e06356109ae65d1fd655c98d01afbe0a",
+    "filename": "deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf",
+    "sha256": "63eb27478a35ec36a3fd7c50e704ef6752ca235a59491d7673909da6fd8f0971"
+  },
+  "corpus": {
+    "artifact": "wikitext2_raw_test",
+    "sha256": "173c87a53759e0201f33e0ccf978e510c2042d7f2cb78229d9a50d79b9e7dd08"
+  },
+  "command": "llama-perplexity --model deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf -f wiki.test.raw -c 128 -b 128 -ub 128 --chunks 4",
+  "reference_run": {
+    "final_ppl": 7.2909,
+    "final_ppl_stderr": 1.30187,
+    "measured_on": "CPU (ggml-cpu backend, GGML_ET=OFF build)",
+    "measured_date": "2026-07-26"
+  },
+  "comparison_threshold": {
+    "metric": "final_ppl",
+    "max_relative_deviation": 0.20,
+    "note": "Matches this repo's own leaderboard-gate policy (PPL must stay within 20% of best-seen value). A full-offload ET-SoC1 re-run against this exact command/corpus/artifact should land at final_ppl within [5.83, 8.75] to be considered consistent with this reference run. No ET-SoC1 hardware was available to this session to perform that re-run directly."
+  }
+}
diff --git a/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/artifacts.json b/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/artifacts.json
index 9c419ae1..fc4e9658 100644
--- a/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/artifacts.json
+++ b/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/artifacts.json
@@ -485,6 +485,24 @@
       "sha256": "d1eb8b6b23979205fdf63703ed10f788131a3f812c7b1f72e0119d5d81295150",
       "size_bytes": 108783360,
       "note": "SmolVLM 500M vision projector (SigLIP ~93M + MLP). Q8_0 quantized. Must be loaded alongside smolvlm_500m_q8_gguf."
+    },
+    "deepseek_moe_16b_base_q8_gguf": {
+      "kind": "model",
+      "framework": "llama.cpp-et",
+      "variant": "DeepSeek-MoE-16B-Base-Q8_0",
+      "filename": "deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf",
+      "env": "DEEPSEEK_MOE_16B_BASE_MODEL_PATH",
+      "source": {
+        "type": "huggingface",
+        "repo": "darthceltic85/deepseek-moe-16b-base-gguf",
+        "revision": "3fcaaa31e06356109ae65d1fd655c98d01afbe0a",
+        "filename": "deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf",
+        "url": "https://huggingface.co/darthceltic85/deepseek-moe-16b-base-gguf/resolve/3fcaaa31e06356109ae65d1fd655c98d01afbe0a/deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf"
+      },
+      "sha256": "63eb27478a35ec36a3fd7c50e704ef6752ca235a59491d7673909da6fd8f0971",
+      "local_cache": "local-artifacts/models/deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf",
+      "board_path": "/data/models/deepseek-moe-16b-base-Q8_0.gguf",
+      "note": "Self-converted (no pre-made Q8_0 GGUF existed); hosted on Hugging Face since the 17.4 GB file far exceeds GitHub's 2 GB release-asset limit. Converter's tokenizer chkhsh table was missing this checkpoint's hash entirely; fixed via a standalone wrapper (see RECIPE.md) that also corrects a same-session naming mistake caught by actually loading the GGUF at runtime, not just trusting a clean Python conversion."
     }
   }
 }
diff --git a/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/benchmarks/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json b/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/benchmarks/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..18fb964e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ported_models/llama_cpp_et/benchmarks/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+{
+  "runner": "llama_server",
+  "board": true,
+  "framework": {
+    "name": "llama.cpp-et",
+    "runner": "llama_server",
+    "source_artifact": "llama_cpp_source"
+  },
+  "artifacts_file": "../artifacts.json",
+  "canonical_variant": "DeepSeek-MoE-16B-Base-Q8_0",
+  "score": {
+    "metric": "tokens_per_second",
+    "label": "Decode tokens/s",
+    "higher_is_better": true
+  },
+  "llama_server": {
+    "source_artifact": "llama_cpp_source",
+    "model_artifact": "deepseek_moe_16b_base_q8_gguf",
+    "server_artifact": "llama_server",
+    "workdir_artifact": "llama_cpp_build",
+    "host": "127.0.0.1",
+    "port": 18148,
+    "device": "ET",
+    "gpu_layers": 99,
+    "ctx_size": 2048,
+    "batch_size": 256,
+    "ubatch_size": 128,
+    "parallel": 1,
+    "cache_ram_mib": 0,
+    "ready_timeout_s": 300,
+    "request_timeout_s": 420,
+    "flash_attn": false,
+    "api": "completion",
+    "prompt": "Repeat this token sequence without commentary: OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK",
+    "max_tokens": 96,
+    "temperature": 0,
+    "ignore_eos": true,
+    "min_completion_tokens": 32,
+    "perplexity": {
+      "enabled": true,
+      "perplexity_artifact": "llama_perplexity",
+      "corpus_artifact": "wikitext2_raw_test",
+      "ctx_size": 128,
+      "batch_size": 128,
+      "ubatch_size": 128,
+      "timeout_s": 420,
+      "min_ppl": 1.0,
+      "max_ppl": 1000.0,
+      "chunks": 4
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/ported_models/submissions/model_ports/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json b/ported_models/submissions/model_ports/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e829ef99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ported_models/submissions/model_ports/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+{
+  "schema_version": 1,
+  "track": "most_models_ported",
+  "benchmark_model": "deepseek_moe_16b_base",
+  "identity_id": "deepseek",
+  "source": {
+    "repo": "deepseek-ai/deepseek-moe-16b-base",
+    "revision": "521d2bc4fb69a3f3ae565310fcc3b65f97af2580",
+    "license": "deepseek (custom model license, see https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-MoE/blob/main/LICENSE-MODEL)"
+  },
+  "implementation_paths": ["ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base"],
+  "benchmark_config": "ported_models/llama_cpp_et/benchmarks/deepseek_moe_16b_base.json",
+  "recipe": "ported_models/deepseek_moe_16b_base/docs/RECIPE.md"
+}