World – Technology
It was surely an extraordinary day for DeepSeek founder and chief executive Liang Wenfeng! The media worldwide reported that he was given a hero’s welcome in his hometown, where he has become a source of pride.
Wenfeng visited his hometown for the Lunar New Year holiday, according to local media and social media posts, as the Chinese start-up remains under the spotlight for its impact on the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
Liang, 40, returned to Mililing village in Zhanjiang, a port city in southern Guangdong province, where a red banner was raised hailing the low-profile tech entrepreneur as “hometown pride” for bringing honor to the local community, according to social media posts.
His visit on Lunar New Year’s Eve marked the day when Chinese families traditionally hold reunions during this national public holiday.
It also raised the profile of Liang’s hometown, which has turned into a tourist attraction based on its DeepSeek connection, amid an influx of domestic visitors to the remote village, according to a report by Yangcheng Evening News, a state-backed publication based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.
Hangzhou-based DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Wall Street and Silicon Valley for developing AI models at a fraction of the cost and computing power that US tech firms like OpenAI, Google, and Meta Platforms typically invest in such projects.
The heightened domestic and international attention given to DeepSeek and its founder reflects the AI community’s admiration for the firm’s low-cost development of world-class models – which either surpassed or matched the performance of rival products across a range of industry benchmark tests – despite tightened US restrictions on China’s access to advanced semiconductors and related technologies.
An unidentified fellow Mililing villager was quoted by Yangcheng Evening News as saying that Liang was gifted growing up there, adding that “he taught himself senior high-school math when he was still a junior.”
During the 2002-2010 period when he studied at Zhejiang University, Liang developed an interest in applying machine-learning technology to quantitative trading.
In 2015, Liang founded High-Flyer Quant, which uses deep-learning algorithms to run what has become one of the largest quantitative hedge funds in mainland China. In 2023, the company spun off DeepSeek as an independent enterprise.
There are certain similarities between Liang and Jim Simons, the American quantitative hedge fund manager and mathematician, according to journalist Gregory Zuckerman, who wrote a book about the US billionaire titled The Man Who Solved the Market.
Liang apparently draws inspiration from Simons and agreed to write the preface to the book’s Chinese edition, Zuckerman reported in The Wall Street Journal.
“The publication of this book unravels many previously unresolved mysteries and brings us a wealth of experiences to learn from,” Liang wrote in the preface.
Liang also pointed out that whenever he encounters difficulties at work, he recalls Simons’ words: “There must be a way to model prices.” – SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
