# Liang Wenfeng

> Liang Wenfeng is the Chinese engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded quantitative investment firm High-Flyer and founded DeepSeek in 2023. Based professionally in Hangzhou, he used High-Flyer’s resources and computing infrastructure to support general AI research, advocating open releases, original technical contributions and research driven by curiosity. DeepSeek’s V3 and R1 releases brought him international attention in 2025; the company moved into external fundraising in 2026.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at DeepSeek
- **Organizations:** DeepSeek, High-Flyer
- **From:** Wuchuan, China
- **Nationality:** Chinese
- **Education:** Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Information Engineering, Zhejiang University, Master of Engineering in Information and Communication Engineering, Zhejiang University
- **Known for:** Co-founded High-Flyer and used its resources to support DeepSeek’s research., Founded DeepSeek in 2023; led the company through the V3 and R1 releases that drew international attention., Included in the 2025 TIME100.

## Career timeline

- **2010** — Completed his engineering master’s at Zhejiang University, researching object tracking with a low-cost PTZ camera.
- **2015** — Co-founded High-Flyer, a quantitative investment business.
- **2019** — Established High-Flyer AI for AI research and computing development.
- **2021** — High-Flyer built Fire-Flyer 2 with roughly 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs.
- **2023** — Founded DeepSeek, backed by High-Flyer, to pursue general AI research.
- **2024** — DeepSeek released V2 and V3.
- **2025** — DeepSeek released R1 on January 20; Liang attended roundtables with Chinese leaders and received international recognition.
- **2026** — DeepSeek released V4 preview and V4.1-Flash, and external financing changed its earlier funding model.

## Achievements

- Co-founded High-Flyer and used its resources to support DeepSeek’s research.
- Founded DeepSeek in 2023; led the company through the V3 and R1 releases that drew international attention.
- Included in the 2025 TIME100.
- Included in Nature’s 10 for 2025.
- Listed as a co-author, under Wenfeng Liang, on DeepSeek technical research papers.

## Latest updates

- **2026-10** — October 22 reporting described a roughly 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) round nearing completion; investor lineup and terms could still change, and DeepSeek had not commented in the report.
- **2026-10** — On October 17, DeepSeek announced public access to its in-house search API and an update to V4.1-Flash.
- **2026-09** — DeepSeek released V4.1-Flash on September 10.
- **2026-06** — DeepSeek raised $7.4 billion in its first external funding round, as described retrospectively in October reporting.
- **2026-04** — DeepSeek announced V4 preview on April 24 with open weights and million-token context.
- **2025-12** — Nature included Liang in Nature’s 10 for 2025.

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/liang-wenfeng
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-22