The success of Chinese firm DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through the artificial intelligence industry – bringing the world’s attention to its previously low-profile CEO.
Liang Wenfeng was not one for fame or fortune, according to his colleagues, but had always hoped he would command the respect of the US-dominated tech world.
Now responsible for one of the biggest shake-ups in the AI sphere, it is safe to say the entrepreneur has achieved just that.
Wenfeng, who by Chinese media accounts has just turned 40, launched his app in the United States on the same day as Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The chatbot has since become the most downloaded free app in the country – with its skyrocketing popularity seeing the value of its rival AI firms tumble and sending shockwaves through Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
His success at challenging US hegemony in the sector has seen him hailed a national hero in China, and earned him an audience with the country’s prime minister Li Qiang last week.
The only AI boss to attend the meeting of China’s leading entrepreneurs, Liang shared his insights on the sector with the country’s top officials, who said that Beijing will ‘focus on breakthroughs in key core technologies and cutting-edge technologies.’
A mathematics ‘nerd’ who had a vision to create human-level AI, Liang told his colleagues earlier in his career of his plans, but was met with scepticism.
‘When we first met him, he was this very nerdy guy with a terrible hairstyle talking about building a 10,000-chip cluster to train his own models. We didn’t take him seriously,’ one of his business partners told the Financial Times.
‘He couldn’t articulate his vision other than saying: I want to build this, and it will be a game change.’
Pictured is Liang Wenfeng, the founder of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, speaking at the symposium presided by Chinese Premier Li Qiang on January 20, 2025
The son of two elementary school teachers, Liang grew up in the port city of Zhanjiang, and was a straight-A student with a passion for mathematics.
He taught himself calculus outside of classes while in middle school, and his former teacher told reporters that he always made sure he could balance ‘work and rest, as if he could learn every subject well without spending a lot of time studying.’
Having studied college-level mathematics while still a young teenager, Liang went on to study information technology at China’s prestigious Zhejiang University.
The college is based in Hangzhou, a technology hub, but he began his career in finance.
Just a few years after graduating he founded investment firm Jacobi, named after German mathematician Carl Jacobi.
The in 2015, he started High-Flyer, which would go on to become one of China’s top hedge funds and build him a fortune by using AI and algorithms to spot patterns that would affect stock prices.
His team used Nvidia microchips, and he is said to have taken his best people with him from the firm to establish DeepSeek in 2023.
Compared to DeepSeek’s rival ChatGPT, the Chinese app produces responses that are much closer aligned with Chinese Communist Party propaganda
Liang hired many young graduates from China’s top schools, saying in a recent interview that his firm’s selection criteria was ‘passion and curiosity’.
He is said to be deeply involved in the day-to-day running of the company and promotes a free and collaborative culture, according to a former employee.
The hands-on CEO is said to have worked late into the night with his team, the Wall Street Journal reports, even sleeping in the office as they rush to get projects done.
His decision to make DeepSeek’s code open-source was key, as he wanted to buck the trend of major tech companies.
‘For technologists, having others follow your work gives a great sense of accomplishment,’ he said in an interview last year with 36Kr. ‘Open source is more of a culture rather than a commercial behavior, and contributing to it earns us respect.’
Beijing has finally started to pay attention to DeepSeek in recent weeks, with experts saying that while it was not initially ‘the chosen one’ of Chinese AI start-ups, its rapid ascent will see it given access to resources and held up as an example.
With Liang’s plans for DeepSeek now paying off, Chinese state media has celebrated the company’s work for showing that even with limited computing power, firms can ‘create miracles’.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
