About DeepSeek
Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., Ltd.,[2][3][4][a] doing business as DeepSeek,[b] is a Chinese artificial intelligence company that develops large language models (LLMs). Based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, it is owned and funded by the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer. DeepSeek was founded in July 2023 by High-Flyer co-founder Liang Wenfeng, who also serves as the CEO for both companies. The company launched an eponymous chatbot alongside its DeepSeek-R1 model in January 2025.
Released under the MIT License, DeepSeek-R1 provides responses comparable to other contemporary large language models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4o and o1.[6] Its training cost is reported to be significantly lower than other LLMs. The company claims that it trained its V3 model for US$6 million compared to $100 million for OpenAI's GPT-4 in 2023,[7] and approximately one-tenth of the computing power used for Meta's comparable model, Llama 3.1.[7][8][9][10] DeepSeek's success against larger and more established rivals has been described as "upending AI".[11][12]
DeepSeek's models are "open weight", which provides less freedom for modification than true open-source software.[13][14] The company reportedly recruits AI researchers from top Chinese universities[11] and hires from outside the computer science field to diversify its models' knowledge and abilities.[8]
The low cost of training and running the language model was attributed to Chinese firms' lack of access to Nvidia chipsets, which were restricted by the US as part of the ongoing trade war between the two countries. This breakthrough in reducing expenses while increasing efficiency and maintaining the model's performance power and quality in the AI industry sent "shockwaves" through the market. It threatened the dominance of AI leaders like Nvidia and contributed to the largest drop in US stock market history, with Nvidia alone losing $600 billion in market value.[15][16]
History
Founding and early years (2016–2023)
In February 2016, High-Flyer was co-founded by AI enthusiast Liang Wenfeng, who had been trading since the 2007–2008 financial crisis while attending Zhejiang University.[17]
The company began stock-trading using a GPU-dependent deep learning model on October 21, 2016. Prior to this, they used CPU-based models, mainly linear models. Most trading was driven by AI by the end of 2017.[18]
In 2019, Liang established High-Flyer as a hedge fund focused on developing and using AI trading algorithms. By 2021, High-Flyer exclusively used AI in trading,[19] often using Nvidia chips.[20]
Initial computing cluster Fire-Flyer began construction in 2019 and finished in 2020, at a cost of 200 million yuan. It contained 1,100 GPUs interconnected at a rate of 200 Gbit/s. It was 'retired' after 1.5 years in operation.[18]
In 2021, Liang began stockpiling Nvidia GPUs for an AI project.[20] According to 36Kr, Liang acquired 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs[21] before the United States restricted chip sales to China.[19] Computing cluster Fire-Flyer 2 began construction in 2021 with a budget of 1 billion yuan.[18]
It was reported that in 2022, Fire-Flyer 2's capacity had been used at over 96%, totaling 56.74 million GPU hours. 27% was used to support scientific computing outside the company.[18]
During 2022, Fire-Flyer 2 had 5000 PCIe A100 GPUs in 625 nodes, each containing 8 GPUs. At the time, they exclusively used PCIe instead of the DGX version of A100, since at the time the models they trained could fit within a single 40 GB GPU VRAM, so there was no need for the higher bandwidth of DGX (i.e. they required only data parallelism but not model parallelism).[22] Later, they incorporated NVLinks and NCCL, to train larger models that required model parallelism.[23][24]
On 14 April 2023,[25] High-Flyer announced the start of an artificial general intelligence lab dedicated to research developing AI tools separate from High-Flyer's financial business.[26][27] Incorporated on 17 July 2023,[1] with High-Flyer as the investor and backer, the lab became its own company, DeepSeek.[19][28][27] Venture capital firms were reluctant to provide funding, as they considered it unlikely that the venture would be able to quickly generate an "exit".[19]
On 16 May 2023, the company Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Company, Limited. was incorporated. It was later taken under 100% control of Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., Ltd, which was incorporated 2 months after.