DeepSeek: first funding round could value company at $45bn

Colleagues, sharing a quick AI update: DeepSeek is negotiating a first funding round.

Briefly:
- FT and Bloomberg report valuation up from $20bn to $45bn.
- In 2025 the lab released an LLM comparable to leaders at lower cost; weights are available on Hugging Face.
- Founder Liang Wenfeng controls ≈90%. The round aims to issue staff equity; led by the state-backed China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, with Tencent and Alibaba reportedly in talks.
- The model is optimized for Huawei chips — part of a hardware-independence strategy.

Why it matters: intensifies global AI competition and underscores the role of state support.

Will this shift the industry's balance of power?

#AI #DeepSeek #China #ML