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 12 months’s Eve celebrations final week, he was given a hero’s welcome.
The village honored him with a pink banner that mentioned, “Heat congratulations for turning into the satisfaction of his hometown,” in line with a translated model of the banner.
Wenfeng’s recognition is partly because of 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 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.
Liang Wenfeng. Picture by VCG/VCG by way of Getty Pictures
Wenfeng was already in style 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 property below administration by 2021. He’s now price at the very least $1 billion, in line with Forbes.
Residents of his hometown advised the Monetary Occasions that as a toddler he was a “prime 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 Road Journal.
Earlier than founding DeepSeek, Wenfeng pursued an training in engineering. In response to The New York Occasions, 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 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 workforce have 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 workforce to focus extra on AI as a aspect undertaking 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 main funding product in February 2024, per The Occasions.
In a 2023 interview with Chinese language tech publication 36KR, Wenfeng mentioned that DeepSeek’s objective was common synthetic intelligence, or AI that surpasses human cognitive skills. He additionally mentioned that AI startups have been well-positioned to compete with established corporations.
“The market is altering,” Wenfeng advised the publication in line with an English-translated model of his remarks, which have been initially made in Chinese language. “The true decisive drive is usually not some ready-made guidelines and situations, however the potential to adapt and alter to modifications.”
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