The story behind DeepSeek’s breakthrough

DeepSeek突破背后的故事

Behind the Money

2025-02-19

17 分钟
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This January, DeepSeek made an announcement that changed the artificial intelligence landscape. The Chinese start-up said that it had trained the latest in a series of competitive AI models, which appeared to be built much more cheaply than those of Silicon Valley competitors. The FT’s China technology correspondent, Eleanor Olcott, first wrote a story about the company last summer. She’s on today to discuss how DeepSeek’s founder Liang Wenfeng was able to finance and grow his company at a time when start-up funding is scarce in China, and often comes with too many strings attached.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  For further reading: Liang Wenfeng, the DeepSeek founder panicking the tech world The global AI race: is China catching up to the US?  Xi Jinping seizes DeepSeek moment to restore China tech chiefs to spotlight - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Follow Eleanor Olcott on X (@EleanorOlcott). Michela Tindera is on X (@mtindera07) and Bluesky (@mtindera.ft.com), or follow her on LinkedIn for updates about the show and more.  Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Recently, my colleague Eleanor Olcott took a trip to China's southern Guangdong province.

  • She traveled to a tiny farming village to visit the childhood home of Liang Wenfeng,

  • the founder of the artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek.

  • We've just arrived in Liang Wenfeng's village of Mililing and there are lots of signs welcoming him home,

  • lots of red banners saying that we celebrate your success.

  • That success Eleanor's talking about has to do with something very big that happened last month.

  • You probably recall this startup DeepSeek shocked the world by proving that China could be competitive on AI.

  • They showed they could potentially compete with the likes of American companies such as Open AI or Meta.

  • We've just walked past Liang Wenfeng's house.

  • You can hear firecrackers going off in the background

  • because it's Chinese New Year and people singing karaoke as well.

  • Liang and his parents left yesterday apparently escorted by a bunch of security guards

  • because they are being inundated by visitors from all over Guangdong coming to pay their respects.