On China's Weibo social network, millions of people have discussed DeepSeek AI with popular hashtags such as "DeepSeek shakes stock market" or "DeepSeek makes tech giants panic". DeepSeek's application has even surpassed major competitors such as ChatGPT in the international rankings, according to CNN.
Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek, is hailed as an icon of technological innovation. Coming from humble origins in a small city in Guangdong, Liang studied information engineering at Zhejiang University. He began his career at hedge fund High-Flyer Quant, where he applied AI to trading strategies. In 2023, Liang founded DeepSeek, with the goal of changing the way the world views artificial intelligence.
In an interview, Liang said that China’s problem is not technology but its dependence on foreign innovation. “We need to create real innovation instead of just copying,” he said. “When this changes, the social mindset will change.”
When the DeepSeek R1 model was introduced, it delivered performance that was nearly on par with world-leading models like GPT-4 or Gemini, but cost only about $6 million to develop, posing a huge challenge to large technology companies, which had to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to train their models.
DeepSeek also attracts attention for its open-source policy, allowing users and other companies to freely explore and build on its platform. A former DeepSeek employee shared that the company provides a collaborative research environment and provides abundant computing resources, something few companies can do.
DeepSeek’s success has not only affected major tech companies but also shaken international financial markets. The stock prices of many major tech companies have fallen, while analysts warn that the emergence of DeepSeek could completely change the global AI value chain.
Despite the restrictions on high-tech chip exports, Liang and his team remain optimistic about the future. He believes that with the right support, China can create its own world-class talent and lead the way in artificial intelligence.
DeepSeek currently maintains a small workforce of about 140 researchers and engineers, all of whom are based in China. The company is focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) and tackling the biggest questions in the field. “We don’t do trivial things, we always aim for the big picture,” Liang said.
DeepSeek's success has affirmed the country's position in the global technology race.
