BANGKOK — A low-profile figure in the tech industry, Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek, an AI startup that has made waves by competing with established players like OpenAI, has steadily built his reputation over the years. At 40, he started DeepSeek in 2023 after launching a hedge fund that focused on quantitative models and eventually pivoted to artificial intelligence.
Liang hails from Guangdong, a southern province in China, and has an academic background from Zhejiang, an eastern province known for housing prominent tech companies such as Alibaba. His hedge fund, High-Flyer Quantitative Investment Management, which he established in 2015, was initially focused on creating algorithms for automated stock trading. Over time, the fund began incorporating machine learning techniques to optimize its trading strategies.
Despite facing setbacks due to regulatory crackdowns affecting Chinese quantitative traders, High-Flyer has managed to maintain significant assets, reportedly overseeing $8 billion. This robust financial base provides substantial support for DeepSeek’s AI research initiatives. Additionally, the hedge fund has developed substantial computing resources, boasting a collection of 10,000 high-performance A100 graphics processor chips from Nvidia by 2022, which are crucial for building AI technologies. However, the U.S. imposed restrictions on sales of those chips to China shortly thereafter.
In a 2023 interview with Waves, Liang expressed confidence in his team’s capabilities, stating, “We are sure now that we want to do this, can do this, and are capable of doing this, so we’re among the best-suited candidates to tackle it at this moment.” He suggested that neither major tech giants nor startups currently dominate the AI landscape, emphasizing that OpenAI’s advancements have encouraged widespread collaboration within the tech community, enabling researchers to utilize published studies and open-source code.
Liang also mentioned that his daily routine consists of reading academic papers, writing code, and engaging in collaborative discussions, much like other researchers in the field. The focus of DeepSeek, he indicated, revolves around exploring the essence of intelligence itself. “People may think there’s some hidden business logic behind this, but it’s mainly driven by curiosity,” he noted.
Interestingly, when DeepSeek was asked about Liang’s background, the AI initially confused him with another entrepreneur of the same name. As of October 2023, the AI revealed that no publicly accessible information about Liang’s educational background or place of origin existed. It added that details about Liang’s personal life remain undisclosed, suggesting an inquiry into DeepSeek’s official channels for further insight.
Liang’s unwavering commitment aligns with his goal of advancing AI development. He believes China should be taking the lead in innovation instead of relying on Western advancements. “What we see is that Chinese AI can’t be in the position of following forever. We often say that there is a gap of one or two years between Chinese AI and the United States, but the real gap is the difference between originality and imitation,” he remarked in a November interview with Waves, stressing the importance of exploration in closing this gap.
