When 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, founding father of the tech world’s newest AI star, DeepSeek, returned to his house 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 pink banner that stated, “Heat congratulations for turning into the delight of his hometown,” in accordance with a translated model of the banner.
Wenfeng’s recognition is partly because of his AI startup, DeepSeek, which rattled U.S. tech stocks when it skyrocketed to the top of app stores 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 fee.
Whereas AI from startups like Anthropic can cost $100 million to develop, DeepSeek claims its AI costs less than $6 million for a similar performance.
Liang Wenfeng. Picture by VCG/VCG by way of Getty Photos
Wenfeng was already standard 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 value at the least $1 billion, in accordance with Forbes.
Residents of his hometown told the Financial Times that as a toddler he was a “high scholar” who learn comedian books and excelled in math.
“All of us grew up on this village,” one resident advised the publication. “We’re very happy with him.”
Who’s Liang Wenfeng?
Wenfeng was born in 1985 and was a straight-A scholar at school, per the Wall Street Journal.
Earlier than founding DeepSeek, Wenfeng pursued an training in engineering. Based on The New York Times, he has a technical background in AI engineering and wrote his 2010 thesis on bettering AI surveillance techniques at Zhejiang College, a public college in Hangzhou, China. He graduated from Zhejiang with a grasp’s diploma in data 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 purchasers.
Excessive-Flyer skilled regulatory pressures from 2019 to 2023, main the crew to focus extra on AI as a aspect venture and construct computing techniques 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 major funding product in February 2024, per The Instances.
In a 2023 interview with Chinese language tech publication 36KR, Wenfeng stated that DeepSeek’s purpose was basic synthetic intelligence, or AI that surpasses human cognitive skills. He additionally stated that AI startups had been well-positioned to compete with established firms.
“The market is altering,” Wenfeng advised the publication in accordance with an English-translated version of his remarks, which had been initially made in Chinese language. “The true decisive pressure is usually not some ready-made guidelines and situations, however the capacity to adapt and regulate to adjustments.”
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