Things few people know about the creator of DeepSeek.

Hailing from a small village in southern China, Liang Wenfeng has become an inspiration to young people after founding the globally renowned startup DeepSeek.

A year ago, not many Chinese people knew about Mililing, a peaceful village located in southern Guangdong province. Now, hundreds of people visit the village every day because it is the hometown of Liang Wenfeng (40 years old), the founder of the startup DeepSeek.

Since DeepSeek shook Silicon Valley with its AI reasoning model in January, Wenfeng has become one of the most influential figures in China. Globally, he is compared to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

Villagers in Mililing even set up stalls near Wenfeng's childhood home to sell souvenirs and drinks, including zhuangyuan sugarcane juice, which was traditionally used to honor those who achieved high scores in the imperial examinations of the past.

“China isn’t always just following behind,” Wenfeng shared in an interview with the news site 36Kr in 2024. When he returned home for the Lunar New Year at the end of January, Wenfeng was even escorted by police. This demonstrates his importance to China’s technology industry.

From a well-educated family, she was a good student from a young age.

Wenfeng was born in 1985 into a family of educators. At that time, China's GDP per capita was around $300 , financial services were limited, and there was no stock market. Mililing was still a traditional village, and most residents knew each other.

As a child, Wenfeng excelled academically at a public school that emphasized mathematics and physics. In 2002, he achieved the highest score in the university entrance examination in Zhanjiang, Guangdong.

Wenfeng's outstanding academic achievements helped him gain admission to Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. At that time, Jack Ma was working hard to develop his e-commerce startup Alibaba in Hangzhou.

A sugarcane juice stall (zhuangyuan) in Mililing village. Photo: SCMP .

Along with Tsinghua University and Peking University, Zhejiang University is considered a training ground for China's most famous billionaires. Among Zhejiang University's alumni is Colin Huang Zheng, founder of online shopping company PDD Holdings, with an estimated net worth of $34 billion .

According to SCMP , China's economic boom in the early 2000s saw many stories of people rising from poverty, highlighting the importance of technology in its rapidly developing economy.

Wenfeng studied electronic engineering at university and enrolled in a postgraduate program in computer vision in 2007. He graduated in 2010 with a thesis on object tracking algorithms for cameras.

Wenfeng's time studying in Hangzhou coincided with a period of economic boom, a thriving stock market, and the explosion of the internet in China.

Despite having access to many high-paying jobs, he still chose his own path. In his internship group at school, a friend revealed that Wenfeng was the only student who requested not to come to the company.

a private lifestyle

After graduating, Wenfeng moved to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. There, he worked on a project using algorithms for stock trading. In 2015, he and his college classmate Xu Jin founded High-Flyer Quant.

In just a few years, High-Flyer Quant quickly rose to prominence, becoming one of China's top four hedge funds, with assets under management exceeding 100 billion yuan. This wealth enabled Wenfeng to invest in a massive computing center for data analysis and stock selection.

In 2021, High-Flyer invested 1 billion yuan to develop a computing center, using 10,000 Nvidia graphics cards.

Despite its great success, High-Flyer still faces challenges. Concerned about increased scrutiny from the Chinese authorities, the company reduced its assets under management in 2022, paid out investors, and repurchased shares during market downturns.

A 1999 photo of a classroom at Wuchuan No. 1 Middle School, with Wenfeng standing in the top row, sixth from the right. Photo: SCMP .

When High-Flyer's computing resources exceeded its daily transaction needs, Wenfeng shifted his focus to AI research, establishing its first lab in 2019.

By 2023, just months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT, Wenfeng transformed its lab into an independent entity called DeepSeek, focusing on developing large-scale language models (LLMs). The products the company introduced caused a stir in Silicon Valley.

According to SCMP , DeepSeek's launch of the V3 open-source platform model in December 2024, and the R1 reasoning model in January of this year, has "revolutionized" the AI ​​field in China.

In an interview, Lee Kai-fu, founder and CEO of the startup 01.AI, stated that the company had stopped developing its own model due to the success of DeepSeek.

DeepSeek is cost-effective and open-source, potentially becoming an alternative to models developed in the US. This differs from OpenAI, which operates on a closed-source model.

Wenfeng shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a conference in February. Photo: CCTV .

Despite creating a global sensation, Wenfeng has remained relatively low-key. His most notable appearance was at a summit hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February.

In the CCTV video , Wenfeng did not speak at the conference, unlike Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun.

Wenfeng also declined an invitation to the AI ​​Action Summit in Paris. He consistently avoided interviews, even when reporters stood outside DeepSeek's headquarters in Hangzhou. Sources indicate that Wenfeng also did not meet with potential investors or local officials.

It's noteworthy that Wenfeng is not active on social media, a rarity even among the discreet business community in China.

The only evidence suggesting his involvement with DeepSeek comes from scientific papers published by the startup. This is in stark contrast to Sam Altman, who frequently promoted OpenAI globally.

Inspiring Chinese youth

The rise of DeepSeek also poses a challenge for OpenAI, particularly with its open-source strategy and market positioning. In early April, Altman shared on X that OpenAI would “launch an open, weighted, reasoning language model in the next few months.”

Last year, Wenfeng predicted that other AI models would soon surpass ChatGPT, even if OpenAI maintained closed source code.

With its diverse techniques, DeepSeek significantly reduces the cost of training AI models. More importantly, the startup has spurred a wave of AI adoption across China. While it cannot meet every need, many large companies such as Alibaba and Tencent have expressed a desire to integrate DeepSeek into their products.

A sign reads, roughly translated, "I'm searching for worms at Mililing," a play on words based on the company name DeepSeek. Photo: SCMP .

However, DeepSeek still faces its own challenges. The company's new models are met with high expectations, while the startup itself is struggling with the US tightening access to advanced chips.

Wenfeng once stated that DeepSeek's ultimate goal was to build general artificial intelligence (AGI), a stage where AI could match or surpass human cognition.

“LLM possesses some characteristics of AGI, and may be the only path to achieving AGI,” he said. Regardless of DeepSeek’s future, Wenfeng has become an inspiration to the younger generation in China.

According to SCMP , Wenfeng's story appeared on a poster at the elementary school he attended. Teachers often held up the DeepSeek leader as an example of diligence and hard work.

When preparing to write literary essays in China, many students stated they would use this person's image to illustrate perseverance, dedication, and overcoming adversity.

Source: https://znews.vn/day-la-nguoi-dung-sau-deepseek-post1547300.html