KUALA LUMPUR – The launch of Deepseek’s groundbreaking R1 AI assistant has not only stirred excitement but also raised competitive concerns in Silicon Valley, spotlighting its enigmatic founder, Liang Wenfeng.
The 40-year-old former hedge fund manager, armed with a degree in artificial intelligence (AI), has been hailed as a key figure driving China’s ambitions in the AI sector, Channel News Asia reported.
Despite his growing influence, Liang remains a relatively unknown figure outside China, with limited information available beyond state media reports.
However, during a national dialogue session last July, he outlined his vision for making AI more affordable and positioning China as a leader in the field.
“China’s AI cannot remain a follower forever,” Liang said, as reported by Channel News Asia. He emphasised that Chinese companies had become “accustomed to leveraging technological innovations developed elsewhere” and called for a shift toward innovation.
“China must gradually transition from being a beneficiary to a contributor, rather than continuing to ride on the coattails of others,” he was quoted as saying.
A rising star in Chinese AI
Liang, often likened to OpenAI Chief executive Sam Altman for his AI evangelism, hails from Zhanjiang, a coastal city in Guangdong province renowned for its industrial prowess. A prodigy in mathematics, he graduated with an AI degree from Zhejiang University before venturing into the finance sector.
In 2015, Liang co-founded High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund that leveraged AI for data-driven trading strategies. Under his leadership, the company’s assets soared from 1 billion yuan (US$138 million) in 2016 to over 10 billion yuan by 2019. The firm also made significant investments in AI infrastructure, acquiring over 10,000 Nvidia graphics processing units before the imposition of US chip sanctions on China.
“Over the years, High-Flyer Quant spent a large portion of profits on AI to build a leading AI infrastructure and conduct large-scale research,” the company noted in a 2023 statement.
CNN’s executive business editor David Goldman described Liang as “an AI evangelist,” comparing his role in China to Altman’s in the West. “His hedge fund, High-Flyer, focuses on AI development and is part of a wave of startups attracting massive investments in the booming AI sector,” Goldman wrote.
Liang’s admiration for American mathematician Jim Simons, detailed in the preface of the Chinese edition of Gregory Zuckerman’s book The Man Who Solved the Market, offers a glimpse into his influences. “Whenever I encounter difficulties at work, I recall Simons’s words: ‘There must be a way to model prices,’” Liang shared, crediting Simons for shaping his approach to using mathematics in financial analysis.
Disrupting the AI landscape with affordability
The rising costs of AI—driven by increasingly complex models and a demand for specialised talent—have prompted global players like Microsoft and Meta to invest billions. In contrast, Liang has prioritised affordability to ensure broader accessibility.
“Our principle is neither to sell at a loss nor to seek excessive profits. The current pricing allows for a modest profit margin above our costs,” he told CCTV News.
“Grabbing users wasn’t our primary goal. We reduced prices because we believe that both AI and API services should be affordable and accessible to everyone.”
Liang’s DeepSeek is rapidly gaining attention as it challenges Western dominance in AI while striving to keep innovation within reach of a wider audience. Whether his vision will translate into global success remains to be seen, but his efforts to position China as a significant AI player are undoubtedly making waves. – January 28, 2025