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 crimson banner that stated, “Heat congratulations for changing into the delight of his hometown,” in keeping with a translated model of the banner.

Wenfeng’s recognition is partly resulting from 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 price $100 million to develop, DeepSeek claims its AI prices lower than $6 million for a similar performance.

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^{Liang Wenfeng. Picture by VCG/VCG through Getty Photos}

Wenfeng was already widespread 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 beneath administration by 2021. He’s now price not less than $1 billion, in keeping with Forbes.

Residents of his hometown informed the Monetary Instances that as a baby he was a “high scholar” who learn comedian books and excelled in math.

“All of us grew up on this village,” one resident informed the publication. “We’re very happy with him.”

Wenfeng was born in 1985 and was a straight-A scholar at school, per the Wall Avenue Journal.

Earlier than founding DeepSeek, Wenfeng pursued an schooling in engineering. In accordance with The New York Instances, he has a technical background in AI engineering and wrote his 2010 thesis on enhancing 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 group had been decided to make use of math and AI to ship robust outcomes for purchasers.

Excessive-Flyer skilled regulatory pressures from 2019 to 2023, main the group to focus extra on AI as a facet challenge 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 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 informed the publication in keeping with an English-translated model of his remarks, which had been initially made in Chinese language. “The actual decisive power is commonly not some ready-made guidelines and situations, however the skill to adapt and modify to adjustments.”

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