Originating from a small village in southern China, Liang Wenfeng has climbed his way up from modest beginnings to achieve widespread recognition.

A short time back, very few individuals in China were familiar with Mililing, a quiet village located in a distant part of southern Guangdong province. However, everything shifted earlier this year as hundreds of tourists started visiting daily to honor Liang Wenfeng, the 40-year-old who founded it. AI startup DeepSeek who has risen as a national hero for providing his nation a competitive advantage in its technological competition with the United States.

The villagers, who often share the family name Liang, have established booths close to his childhood residence to peddle keepsakes and beverages, including zhuangyuan Sugarcane Juice - a tribute to the traditional honorific bestowed upon the highest-ranking test-takers in the imperial examinations. Similar to Liang, numerous former intellectuals ascended from modest origins to attain renown and wealth solely through their remarkable intellect.

Ever since DeepSeek stunned both Silicon Valley and Wall Street with its advanced reasoning capabilities back in January, Liang has emerged as one of China’s leading personalities—much like how nuclear and space scientists from the 1950s and '60s propelled national progress. On an international scale, Liang is recognized as a prominent tech mogul whose influence could potentially surpass even top American counterparts such as OpenAI founder Sam Altman and redefine the U.S.-China competition.

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Liang stated in a 2024 interview with the Chinese media outlet 36Kr that China cannot perpetually remain as a follower.

A vendor informed a Post journalist that Liang returned to the village In late January, during the Lunar New Year celebrations, he was escorted by armed police officers, underscoring his significant role for the nation.

In 1985, when Liang came into the world as the child of a primary school teacher, China was still grappling with the remnants of a planned economy. At that time, the country’s GDP per capita stood at just $300, financial services were scarce, and there wasn’t even a stock market. Mili Ling continues to be a conventional rural area where everybody appears to recognize one another.

According to a recent article published in South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo at the beginning of this month, Wenfeng made a contribution of 3,000 yuan ($41 USD) as part of an effort to assist China's senior citizens. This act aligns with the customs practiced by more than one hundred individuals sharing the same family name within their community. Additionally, last year, it came to light that Zhang Yiming, who founded ByteDance—the parent company behind TikTok—donated 2 million yuan. an ancestral temple In the village of Gongfu located in the southeastern part of Fujian Province.

Liang thrived within China’s educational framework, known for its strong focus on mathematics and physics. In 2002, when China reported a GDP per capita of $US1,150 following its entry into the World Trade Organization in the previous year, Liang—a 17-year-old at the time—scored top marks in the provincial college admission examination in Zhanjiang city, located in Guangdong province.

His outstanding academic achievements resulted in his enrollment at the renowned Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, the lakeside hub of eastern Zhejiang Province, where he joined a program headed by a 38-year-old. Jack Ma was having difficulty expanding his e-commerce startup named Alibaba .

(Alibaba Group Holding is the owner of the South ChinaMorning Post.)

It is thought that Zhejiang University competes with Tsinghua University and Peking University in cultivating billionaires. Its alumni list includes Colin Huang Zheng The founder of the massive e-commerce company PDD Holdings, who has an estimated net worth of $34 billion. The economic surge in China during the early 2000s led to many tales of individuals rising from humble beginnings to great prosperity, highlighting how technological advancements can reshape a quickly expanding market economy.

In 2007, Liang pursued studies in electronics engineering and embarked on a three-year postgraduate program focused on machine vision. He completed his degree in 2010, having written a thesis about an object-tracking algorithm designed for cameras. Within this research document, he expressed gratitude towards his mentor as well as five fellow students. Among these individuals was Xu Jin, who later turned into a significant business collaborator—a relationship akin to Zhang’s partnership with his college mate Liang Rubo, who together established ByteDance.

During Liang's stay in Hangzhou, he witnessed a period marked by significant economic growth, volatile stock markets, and the swift uptake of internet technology fueled by the widespread use of smartphones.

Even though he held an esteemed degree that opened doors to numerous high-paying career options, Liang decided to carve out his own route. Some academic programs require interns as part of their curriculum. According to someone directly involved—who wished to remain anonymous—Liang was the sole individual in his internship cohort who opted against going to the corporate office.

Upon graduating, Liang relocated to Chengdu, the bustling metropolis which serves as the heart of southwestern Sichuan Province with its relaxed atmosphere. In this city, he embarked on a venture involving algorithmic stock trading, drawing inspiration from the renowned American hedge fund manager James Simons. For the Chinese edition of Simons’ autobiography, Liang penned an introduction where he boldly claimed that there must be a method to create predictive price models.

In 2015, Liang teamed up with Xu to launch High-Flyer Quant. A recruitment notice from those early days suggested Liang’s achievements: it mentioned that in 2008, a person named Mr. L began trading stocks through algorithmic methods with an original capital of 80,000 yuan. Over the subsequent seven-year period, this individual managed to achieve more than 100 percent annual returns, eventually amassing a billion-dollar fortune.

Rapid Ascent swiftly became one of China’s leading quantum trading firms, boasting over 100 billion yuan in managed assets as investors rushed to place their money with Liang. This surge in capital enabled him to establish an extensive computational hub dedicated to data analysis and equity picking.

In 2021, High-Flyer announced an investment of 1 billion yuan to build a computational center featuring 10,000 Nvidia GPUs.

Nevertheless, success introduced new hurdles. Although quantum trading was accepted to some degree, Chinese regulators remained doubtful about it, causing concern for Liang, as per an insider familiar with the firm’s operations. In 2022, High-Flyer decreased its managed assets by refunding investor capital and used the market dip to buy stocks.

When High-Flyer’s computational capabilities exceeded their everyday trading demands, Liang shifted his focus toward artificial intelligence studies. He set up an AI laboratory in 2019. Shortly after OpenAI introduced ChatGPT in early 2023, he converted this facility into a separate organization named DeepSeek, with the aim of developing large language models (LLMs).

In the bustling world of large language models (LLMs), DeepSeek stood out as an innovative leader, surpassing established technology giants and numerous startups alike. The introduction of their open-source V3 foundational model in December and the R1 reasoning model in January dramatically transformed the local artificial intelligence industry. Lee Kai-fu, who founded and leads the startup 01.AI, commented on this development. a conversation with the Post In March, he announced that his company had ceased development of its own models due to DeepSeek's success.

DeepSeek, with more than 100 young researchers on board, is ready for further advancements. Following the release of version V3, the startup has demonstrated its dedication to technological progress even after gaining initial recognition.

Petteri Kuittinen, who lectures on information and communications technology at Häme University of Applied Sciences in Finland, stated that the DeepSeek team is enhancing their offerings but trying to maintain low-key publicity.

DeepSeek’s models are economical and open-source, offering a practical substitute for those developed in the U.S. In sharp contrast, OpenAI, although its name suggests otherwise, utilized a proprietary model and maintained secrecy around its advancements, according to Kuittinen.

Despite the accolades, Liang maintains a low profile. His only notable appearance was at a high-profile symposium chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February. Liang did not speak, unlike other attendees such as Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, according to a video from China Central Television.

Liang refused offers to participate in discussions at the AI Action Summit held in Paris during that month and consistently denied interview requests, despite numerous journalists congregating around DeepSeek’s corporate offices located in an upscale business complex in Hangzhou. Informants mentioned that he also chose not to meet with possible financiers and representatives from regional governmental bodies.

Notably, Liang does not have any visible social media profile, which stands out as particularly unusual even among reclusive Chinese technology business owners. Evidence of his association with DeepSeek comes solely from his listed authorship on research papers released by the company. This discretion markedly differs from Altman’s approach, who frequently advocates for OpenAI’s offerings internationally.

Liang's appearance introduces complexities for Altman, leading OpenAI to reassess its open-source approach and market stance, as per Kevin Zhou, the founder of technology news platform Pandaily and writer of the initial Chinese-language biography about Altman. Earlier this month, Altman stated on X that OpenAI plans to unveil "a highly potent new large-scale language model capable of reasoning within the next few months."

Last year, Liang forecasted that other developers of AI models would ultimately outperform OpenAI, assuming that ChatGPT’s creator maintained its policy of keeping their offerings proprietary.

Thanks to advancements such as the "mixture-of-experts" framework and multi-head latent attention, DeepSeek has substantially lowered the expenses associated with AI training. Additionally, these models have been crafted by researchers based in China. This startup has ignited a nationwide push toward integrating AI technology into multiple industries. Despite not being able to keep up with every demand, major Chinese corporations like Alibaba along with others continue to explore opportunities offered by DeepSeek. Tencent Holdings , are keen to incorporate DeepSeek's models into their respective offerings.

"The innovation extends beyond just technical aspects; it involves strategy as well," stated Sujan Sarkar, co-founder of AITools.xyz, a site monitoring the popularity of AI services.

Nonetheless, DeepSeek, functioning more akin to a laboratory rather than a conventional business, encounters increasing difficulties in sustaining its progress. There is significant anticipation for their upcoming model; however, the firm grapples with limited availability of sophisticated chips sourced from the United States.

"A source close to the developers at DeepSeek questioned whether it can fully deviate from the scaling laws," which posit that increasing training data and model parameters boosts a model’s intelligence. The response was uncertain: “The answer remains unknown.”

Liang has stated that DeepSeek’s final objective is to attain artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is characterized by an AI system matching or surpassing human-level cognition. He mentioned, “LLMs exhibit certain initial traits of AGI and may be the sole route toward achieving it.” According to him, they will begin with this approach before focusing on visual aspects later.

It remains uncertain whether DeepSeek will maintain its innovative edge; however, Liang, who received his entire education in China, has already emerged as an inspiration for the country’s youth.

A poster at Liang's elementary school highlights that he started studying university-level mathematics during middle school. At Wuchuan No. 1 Middle School, where Liang spent six years, students select either the science or art track in their sophomore year. In their junior year, among the 28 available classes, 20 focus on scientific disciplines such as math, physics, and chemistry.

Teachers often highlight Liang as a motivating case for hardworking students. Regarding those who wrote essays as part of their Chinese literature examinations this year, numerous students mentioned they would definitely include the DeepSeek founder as an illustration of resilience, commitment, and triumphing over challenges.

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The article initially appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), which serves as the premier source for news coverage of China and Asia.

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