Liang Wenfeng

The most shocking AI development in 2025 didn’t come from OpenAI, Meta, or even Alibaba. Instead, it was DeepSeek, a scrappy Chinese startup, that stunned the world with a model that matched, and even surpassed, leading U.S. AI models, all while operating with far fewer resources. DeepSeek is the brainchild of the intensely private Liang Wenfeng, who founded the AI startup as an offshoot of quant hedge fund High-Flyer. Liang and DeepSeek are now the darlings of China’s AI sector, sparking a massive rally among Chinese AI stocks and undercutting U.S. rationales for export controls. Liang got a special seat at a symposium with Chinese President Xi Jinping, alongside other leading business titans like Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei and Tencent’s Pony Ma, lifting the AI founder to the status of Chinese business royalty.

Read more: Meet the hedge fund manager who founded DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that began as a hobby and is now laying waste to U.S. stocks