tech
May 6, 2026
DeepSeek could hit $45B valuation from its first investment round
The Chinese AI lab came to prominence in early 2025 after launching a large language model that trained on a fraction of the compute power and at a fraction of the cost of the big U.S. models like those from OpenAI and Anthropic.
TL;DR
- DeepSeek is negotiating its first venture capital round, with its valuation potentially reaching $45 billion.
- The Chinese AI lab gained prominence with a large language model trained on significantly less compute power and cost than U.S. models.
- The company's founder, Liang Wenfeng, is seeking investment to offer employees company shares amid competition for researchers.
- The funding round is reportedly led by the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, with Tencent and Alibaba also in talks to participate.
- DeepSeek's technology is optimized for Huawei chips, aligning with China's strategy to bolster domestic AI capabilities.
- DeepSeek's models remain open-weight, with versions available on Hugging Face.