People across China are hailing the success of homegrown tech startup DeepSeek and its founder, after the company\u2019s newest artificial intelligence model sent shock waves through Silicon Valley and Wall Street. <\/p>\n
\u201cDeepSeek overturns the US stocks overnight\u201d one trending hashtag with tens of millions of views proclaimed on Chinese social media platform Weibo. \u201cDeepSeek makes Meta panic,\u201d said another, in reference to the US tech giant that\u2019s invested heavily in developing its own AI models. <\/p>\n
More than a dozen hashtags related to the cutting-edge technology were trending on Weibo early this week as DeepSeek surged to the top of international app store charts, surpassing American company OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT on Monday. <\/p>\n
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng was also hailed as a tech visionary who could help China usher in a culture of innovation to rival that of Silicon Valley. <\/p>\n
The engineer-turned-entrepreneur, who rarely gives interviews, is known for hiring only domestic talent and keeping his AI models open source, allowing other companies or users to test and build upon the model. <\/p>\n
Liang, a co-founder of AI-oriented hedge fund High-Flyer Quant, founded DeepSeek in 2023. The startup\u2019s newest model DeepSeek R1, unveiled on January 20, can nearly match the capabilities of its far more famous American rivals, including OpenAI\u2019s GPT-4, Meta\u2019s Llama and Google\u2019s Gemini. However, it cost less than $6 million to build, the company claims \u2013 a fraction of the investment from those other firms. <\/p>\n
Famed tech investor Marc Andreessen hailed the model as a \u201cSputnik moment\u201d and US President Donald Trump on Monday called the breakthrough a \u201cwake-up call\u201d for America in its rivalry with China. Technological dominance, especially in AI, has become a key battleground between the two powers, with the US in recent years limiting Chinese firms\u2019 access to chips that could power rapid AI development. <\/p>\n
Analysts say that more information is needed to verify DeepSeek\u2019s claims about its product\u2019s pricetag and point out that the app operates within the stringent restrictions on speech and information imposed by the Chinese government. That means its AI assistant\u2019s answers to questions on the Tiananmen Square massacre or Hong Kong\u2019s pro-democracy protests will mirror Beijing\u2019s line \u2013 or a response will be declined altogether. <\/p>\n
But for many in China, the success of the technology \u2013 and Liang\u2019s vision and ethos for DeepSeek \u2013 mark a significant step forward for the country in a competitive international arena. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how powerful the old guard is, they may be overturned overnight,\u201d read one triumphant comment on Weibo with over a thousand likes. <\/p>\n
\u201c(Liang\u2019s) achievements \u2026 can be called a national destiny,\u201d another read. <\/p>\n
Born in the 1980s as the son of a primary school teacher, Liang grew up in a small city in China\u2019s southern province of Guangdong. He went on to study information and electronic engineering at Zhejiang University, a prestigious school in China\u2019s eastern tech hub Hangzhou, according to Chinese state media. <\/p>\n
Early business associates interviewed by state-linked financial outlet Yicai in recent days remembered the future DeepSeek founder as a bit \u201cnerdy\u201d and recalled \u201ca terrible haircut\u201d he sported in the past. <\/p>\n
Liang talked about his idea of training large AI models and \u201cchanging the rules of the game,\u201d but no one took him seriously, the outlet reported, without naming the early associates. Such feats were typically only deemed possible for China\u2019s tech giants like ByteDance or Alibaba, it said. <\/p>\n
Liang co-founded his AI-oriented hedge fund High-Flyer Quant in 2015, less than decade after he finished his undergraduate studies, according to state media reports. The fund incorporates AI machine learning models into its operations, according to the company\u2019s website. <\/p>\n
At the same time, the firm was amassing computing power into a basketball court\u2013sized AI supercomputer, becoming among the top companies in China in terms of processing capabilities \u2013 and the only one that was not a major tech giant, according to state-linked outlet The Paper. <\/p>\n
In 2023, Liang founded DeepSeek, with a focus on advancing the field of general artificial intelligence \u2013 and, apparently, revamping China\u2019s culture around innovation. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe often say there\u2019s a one or two-year gap between China and the US, but the real gap is between originality and imitation. If this doesn\u2019t change, China will always be a follower,\u201d Liang said in a rare media interview with the finance and tech-focused Chinese media outlet 36Kr last July. <\/p>\n
The rise of DeepSeek roughly coincides with the wind-down of a heavy-handed state crackdown on the country\u2019s tech giants by authorities seeking to re-assert control over a cohort of innovative private firms that had grown too powerful in the government\u2019s eyes. <\/p>\n
But Beijing has also placed tremendous emphasis on cultivating technological prowess, with Chinese leaders vowing over the past year to boost self-reliance and strength in technology \u2013 especially in the face of mounting tech competition with the United States. <\/p>\n
Liang appeared to reference difficulties posed by US tech export controls \u2013 saying in the 36Kr interview last year that his company\u2019s challenges have not been about money, but the embargo on \u201chigh-end chips.\u201d <\/p>\n
But he also expressed optimism about China\u2019s ability to compete in the future. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen society allows hardcore innovators to succeed, collective thinking will change. We just need more concrete examples and processes,\u201d Liang told the outlet. <\/p>\n
The company, which has teams in Beijing and Hangzhou, has remained small, with just under 140 researchers and engineers, according to state media \u2013 a far cry from the large firms both in China and the US that have led the creation of AI models. <\/p>\n
DeepSeek\u2019s employees have been recruited domestically, Liang said in the same interview last year, describing his team as fresh graduates and doctorate students from top Chinese universities. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe top 50 talents may not be in China, but maybe we can create such people ourselves,\u201d he told 36Kr, noting that the work is divided \u201cnaturally\u201d by who has what strengths. \u201cInnovation first requires confidence. This confidence is usually more obvious in young people,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Zihan Wang, a former DeepSeek employee now studying in the US, told MIT Technology Review in an interview published this month that the company offered \u201ca luxury that few fresh graduates would get at any company\u201d – access to abundant computing resources and the freedom to experiment. <\/p>\n
The whole team shared a \u201ccollaborative culture\u201d around research, Wang said. <\/p>\n
Active recruitment ads on the DeepSeek website and major job seeking sites show the company hiring deep learning researchers, engineers, and user interface designers. <\/p>\n
Among them, the highest paid engineers\u2019 positions are listed with a monthly salary range of up to 90,000 yuan ($12,400). By comparison, the higher end of the base pay for a Google software engineer is upwards of $29,000, according to tech industry salary insight platform levels.fyi. <\/p>\n
A post on DeepSeek\u2019s official Wechat social media account declares that the company\u2019s devotion is to \u201cexploring the essence of AGI\u201d or artificial general intelligence. \u201cWe don\u2019t do mediocre things and answer the biggest questions with curiosity and a far-reaching vision,\u201d the post added. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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