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DeepSeek

Artificial IntelligenceFounded 2023
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Founders

Who Founded DeepSeek?

Liang Wenfeng · Founded 2023 · HQ today: Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Who founded DeepSeek?

DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng in 2023 in Hangzhou, China. It is now led by Liang Wenfeng.

Founders
Liang Wenfeng
Founded
2023
Headquarters
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Number of founders
1
Current CEO
Liang Wenfeng (since 2023)
Where was DeepSeek founded?
DeepSeek was founded in Hangzhou, China in 2023. wikidata.org
When was DeepSeek founded?
DeepSeek was founded in 2023.
Who started DeepSeek?
DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng.
How old is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is 3 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

Liang Wenfeng studied electronic information engineering at Zhejiang University and co-founded High-Flyer in 2015 to trade with machine-learning models. By 2021 he was buying Nvidia GPUs in bulk, reportedly about 10,000 A100s before US export controls tightened. In April 2023 High-Flyer announced an AGI research lab; on 17 July 2023 it was spun off as DeepSeek. Venture investors initially passed, doubting a quick exit, so High-Flyer and Liang funded it themselves.

Liang Wenfeng

Background

Quantitative finance veteran who previously founded the massive high-frequency trading firm High-Flyer Quant.

Role at DeepSeek

Liang Wenfeng founded DeepSeek in 2023. Leveraging the massive GPU clusters and algorithmic expertise he built at his quantitative trading firm, High-Flyer, he aimed to build a purely Chinese, open-source AI rival to OpenAI. Under his leadership, DeepSeek rapidly trained the highly efficient DeepSeek-V2 and DeepSeek-Coder models, aggressively undercutting Western AI API pricing and establishing the company as a dominant force in China's generative AI ecosystem.

Liang Wenfeng was born in 1985 in Zhanjiang. Education: Zhejiang University; Zhejiang University.

Liang was born in 1985 and attended Zhejiang University. In 2025 he was named to Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people.

DeepSeek: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Liang Wenfeng

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

2023 – Present

As CEO, he utilized the massive, pre-existing compute infrastructure from his high-frequency trading firm to rapidly iterate on LLM architectures, bypassing the traditional venture capital funding cycle.

Keep researching DeepSeek

Who Founded DeepSeek? FAQ

Who founded DeepSeek and when was the company incorporated?

Liang Wenfeng founded DeepSeek. High-Flyer announced the lab on 14 April 2023 and it was spun off as an independent company in Hangzhou on 17 July 2023.

What was High-Flyer Capital Management and how did it give birth to DeepSeek?

Founded in 2015 by Liang Wenfeng, High-Flyer Capital Management became one of China's top quantitative hedge funds, managing over 60 billion RMB ($8.5B+) at its peak. High-Flyer's large investment in AI computing clusters and talent directly spawned DeepSeek as an independent AI lab.

What was the founding vision of DeepSeek in 2023?

The founding vision was to pursue Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) through innovative algorithmic architectures, transparent scientific publication, and open-source models, proving that Chinese research could lead global AI innovation.

How did the founders build DeepSeek's original computing infrastructure?

DeepSeek utilized High-Flyer's high-performance computing cluster ('Do pond II' / Huanfang AI cluster), optimizing networking fabrics and storage systems to extract maximum utilization from clusters of Nvidia A100 and H800 GPUs.

What early models did the founders release in 2023 to 2024?

DeepSeek released DeepSeek-LLM (67B) in late 2023, followed by DeepSeek-Coder, DeepSeek-Math, DeepSeek-V2 in May 2024 (introducing MLA), DeepSeek-Coder-V2, and the flagship DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 in late 2024/early 2025.

How did the founders recruit top mathematical and computer science talent?

DeepSeek recruited top mathematical Olympiad medalists, ACM-ICPC competitive programmers, and PhD researchers from China's premier universities, providing them with large compute resources and complete freedom to tackle difficult reasoning problems.

Who founded DeepSeek?

It was founded by Liang Wenfeng and the core executive team of High-Flyer Quant, leveraging their deep expertise in massive distributed computing and mathematical modeling.

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Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.