DeepSeek Poses a Challenge to Beijing as Much as to Silicon Valley

The Story of Liang Wenfeng, the Model-Maker's Mysterious Founder.

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With the release of its latest artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek, an obscure Chinese firm, has laid waste to several years of American policy meant to hold back Chinese innovation—and, in the process, blown a hole in the valuations of companies from Nvidia, America's AI-chip champion, to Siemens Energy, a manufacturer of electrical equipment used in data centers.

In demonstrating its ability to innovate around American export restrictions, DeepSeek has raised doubts as to whether access to piles of cutting-edge semiconductors and related equipment is as important as previously thought when it comes to training AI models.

The man at the center of it all is Mr. Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek's 40-year-old founder. It is unclear how much he has relished the global market turmoil he has unleashed. A high school classmate who recently spoke to local media said Mr. Liang was hiding out in his hometown for the Chinese New Year, which started on Jan 29.

Playfully mocked on Chinese social media for his skinny, pale appearance, Mr. Liang remains a mystery to most people. Those who have had professional dealings with DeepSeek say he is obsessed with human-like artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the impact it could have on the world. In his pursuit of it, DeepSeek's founder is upending ideas about technological progress both in the West and China.

Public information on Mr. Liang is scant. Born into a family of teachers in an impoverished village near the southern city of Zhanjiang in 1985, he was a gifted student. A former instructor claimed he mastered university-level maths in middle school. In 2002, he gained entry into an electronic information degree at Zhejiang University, the prestigious school in the eastern city of Hangzhou. A master's degree at the same university, under a well-known machine-vision scientist, exposed him to the field of AI.