Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek has reportedly put on hold the second round of fundraising it was pursuing, after securing its first external investment worth about 11 trillion won.
Bloomberg News reported on Aug. 25, citing multiple anonymous sources, that DeepSeek informed some investors slated to join the second round that it would suspend the deal process for the time being.
According to the sources, contrary to earlier expectations, DeepSeek conveyed verbally that it would not sign investment contracts for the time being. However, it was said that there remains a possibility the deal process could resume later. It was not confirmed whether DeepSeek delivered the same policy to all corporations seeking to participate in the second round.
The pause in the fundraising process reportedly came after remarks by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng at a closed-door investor event were reported by Chinese media.
Chinese outlets recently reported details from a three-hour-and-44-minute closed-door meeting the founder held with investors in May, when the first external fundraising was underway.
Bloomberg analyzed that the founder's displeasure over the leak of the private remarks to the outside had, to some extent, influenced the suspension of the fundraising. However, it was not known which specific disclosures he took issue with.
According to China Business News, the founder cited computing power (computational capacity) as the biggest challenge China faces in the U.S.–China AI race. He said, "The only gap between us and the United States is resources," adding, "In many cases we know the direction and training methods, but what practically constrains us is resources, especially computing power." He went on to say, "Several technical routes have also been set aside for now due to a lack of resources."
The founder said that the development of new technologies, including AI, is rapidly weakening the entry barriers built by U.S. Nvidia's software platform "CUDA," calling it a historic opportunity to replace them with Chinese AI chips.
He said, "Within the next year, we will be able to prove that there is no problem with China's chip ecosystem," and predicted, "There used to be a perception that Chinese chips could not be used or were inconvenient to use, but within a year we will be able to change that."
The founder emphasized that DeepSeek is not a corporations seeking to maximize commercial profit, and that its long-term goal is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI refers to AI that demonstrates humanlike capabilities across diverse fields.
He said the open-source strategy does not conflict with commercialization, stressing that a corporations' "restraint" is important. Rather than maximizing profit, it is enough to earn revenue at a reasonable level. He also projected that the profits generated by the AI industry in the future could reach 10% of total gross domestic product (GDP).