When 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, founding father of the tech world’s newest AI star, DeepSeek, returned to his residence village within the southern Chinese language province of Guangdong for Lunar New Yr’s Eve celebrations final week, he was given a hero’s welcome.
The village honored him with a purple banner that stated, “Heat congratulations for turning into the satisfaction of his hometown,” based on a translated model of the banner.
Wenfeng’s recognition is partly attributable to his AI startup, DeepSeek, which rattled U.S. tech shares when it skyrocketed to the highest of app shops final month (it is nonetheless topping iPhone charts) after claiming that its newest AI mannequin matched or surpassed AI from trade leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google—however at a fraction of the associated fee.
Whereas AI from startups like Anthropic can value $100 million to develop, DeepSeek claims its AI prices lower than $6 million for a similar performance.
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Liang Wenfeng. Photograph by VCG/VCG by way of Getty Photos
Wenfeng was already fashionable in Guangdong earlier than DeepSeek. He turned a billionaire after establishing the hedge fund Excessive-Flyer in 2015, which exceeded 100 billion yuan (near $14 billion) in belongings below administration by 2021. He’s now price a minimum of $1 billion, based on Forbes.
Residents of his hometown instructed the Monetary Occasions that as a toddler he was a “prime pupil” who learn comedian books and excelled in math.
“All of us grew up on this village,” one resident instructed the publication. “We’re very pleased with him.”
Who’s Liang Wenfeng?
Wenfeng was born in 1985 and was a straight-A pupil in class, per the Wall Avenue Journal.
Earlier than founding DeepSeek, Wenfeng pursued an schooling in engineering. In response to The New York Occasions, he has a technical background in AI engineering and wrote his 2010 thesis on enhancing AI surveillance programs at Zhejiang College, a public college in Hangzhou, China. He graduated from Zhejiang with a grasp’s diploma in info and communication engineering.
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Wenfeng based the hedge fund Excessive-Flyer in June 2015 on the age of 30, per the Chinese language publication QQ.com. He and his crew had been decided to make use of math and AI to ship sturdy outcomes for shoppers.
Excessive-Flyer skilled regulatory pressures from 2019 to 2023, main the crew to focus extra on AI as a aspect mission and construct computing programs with Nvidia graphics playing cards. Wenfeng formally based DeepSeek in July 2023. The AI firm turned extra of a spotlight for him after Excessive-Flyer needed to shut down its main funding product in February 2024, per The Occasions.
In a 2023 interview with Chinese language tech publication 36KR, Wenfeng stated that DeepSeek’s aim was normal synthetic intelligence, or AI that surpasses human cognitive skills. He additionally stated that AI startups had been well-positioned to compete with established corporations.
“The market is altering,” Wenfeng instructed the publication based on an English-translated model of his remarks, which had been initially made in Chinese language. “The true decisive power is commonly not some ready-made guidelines and circumstances, however the potential to adapt and alter to modifications.”
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