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South China Morning Post
09-02-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
How AI start-up DeepSeek upended industry assumptions and changed China's narrative
In 2022, under the pseudonym 'an ordinary little pig', the founder of artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek quietly donated 138 million yuan (US$19 million) to Chinese charities. The name, a nod to Wang Xiaobo's dark-humour short story 'A Maverick Pig', reportedly masked the true identity of Liang Wenfeng, a man whose quantum trading operation was facing mounting regulatory pressure. Advertisement On January 28 that year, Liang's hedge fund High-Flyer Quant issued a statement to the public denying that its quantum trading was responsible for a plunge in Chinese stocks. 'In recent days, there was market gossip that a coordinated sell-off by quant trading institutions had led to a market downfall,' High-flyer said. 'We've discussed with managers of the major players in the industry and they all denied such a thing. Please don't believe the gossip, thanks.' Three years later, DeepSeek, a spin-off from High-Flyer, would make headlines for actually being responsible for roiling the US stock market. On January 27, a massive sell-off wiped out nearly US$1 trillion in tech stocks, including US$600 billion from Nvidia alone. The catalyst was the release of DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model, which came just weeks after it unveiled the more traditional V3 large language model (LLM). These models rivalled the performance of OpenAI's offerings at a fraction of the cost, casting doubt on the assumptions underpinning the high valuations of US chip and AI companies.
South China Morning Post
08-02-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
From ‘piglet' to powerhouse: how DeepSeek changed China's AI narrative
Ben Jiang , Ann Cao , Wency Chen and Zhou Xin Published: 11:00am, 8 Feb 2025 In 2022, under the pseudonym 'an ordinary little pig', the founder of artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek quietly donated 138 million yuan (US$19 million) to Chinese charities. The name, a nod to Wang Xiaobo's dark-humour short story 'A Maverick Pig', reportedly masked the true identity of Liang Wenfeng, a man whose quantum trading operation was facing mounting regulatory pressure. On January 28 that year, Liang's hedge fund High-Flyer Quant issued a statement to the public denying that its quantum trading was responsible for a plunge in Chinese stocks. 'In recent days, there was market gossip that a coordinated sell-off by quant trading institutions had led to a market downfall,' High-flyer said. 'We've discussed with managers of the major players in the industry and they all denied such a thing. Please don't believe the gossip, thanks.' Three years later, DeepSeek, a spin-off from High-Flyer, would make headlines for actually being responsible for roiling the US stock market. On January 27, a massive sell-off wiped out nearly US$1 trillion in tech stocks, including US$600 billion from Nvidia alone. The catalyst was the release of DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model, which came just weeks after it unveiled the more traditional V3 large language model (LLM). These models rivalled the performance of OpenAI's offerings at a fraction of the cost, casting doubt on the assumptions underpinning the high valuations of US chip and AI companies.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DeepSeek attracts China's young jobseekers as AI firm ramps up recruitment
DeepSeek, China's hottest tech start-up, has become one of the most coveted destinations for young jobseekers across the country, as the company ramps up recruitment of artificial intelligence (AI) talent. Spots for dozens of jobs related to research and development in artificial general intelligence (AGI) have been opened by DeepSeek at its home base in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, and in Beijing, according to the website of parent firm High-Flyer Quant and various Chinese recruitment sites. AGI is software with humanlike intelligence and the ability to self-teach, performing tasks that it was not necessarily trained for. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. The first working day after the Lunar New Year break already saw a few young jobseekers venture to DeepSeek's headquarters, in the hope of getting employed or striking up potential partnerships. "If I can meet with them, I want to ask if they have any idea to develop AI agents," said Hangzhou resident Liu Yuanjie, a fresh graduate who studied automation. Another jobseeker, surnamed Shen, said he drove for four days - from southwestern Sichuan province to Hangzhou - to apply for a job at DeepSeek, which he referred to as "the nation's pride" because of its AI achievements. Shen said he would take any job at the firm, "whether as a cleaner or a driver". Landing a job at artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has become the goal for a growing number of young tech talent in China. Photo: Shutterstock alt=Landing a job at artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has become the goal for a growing number of young tech talent in China. Photo: Shutterstock> That enthusiasm from young Chinese jobseekers reflects the wide admiration for the start-up at home and abroad, following its recent release of two powerful new AI models, DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1, that were built at a fraction of the cost and computing power that major tech companies muster to build large language models - the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT. The AI industry's buzz over DeepSeek appeared to reach a crescendo late last month when news spread that its namesake chatbot, integrated with the R1 reasoning model, seized the top spot among free-to-use apps on Apple's App Stores in the US and China. On Wednesday, the Communist Party secretary of southern Guangdong province, Huang Kunming, commended DeepSeek for taking on US AI titans with "courage and vigour". Huang, a member of the Politburo, is the first senior Chinese government official to publicly praise the start-up. DeepSeek's growing fame certainly helps its recruitment efforts amid challenges in China's job market. While the country's booming AI industry appears to have a plethora of job openings, there is not enough talent to fill them, according to a report from Maimai, a Chinese professional online network similar to LinkedIn. The role of "deep-learning researcher in AGI" at DeepSeek's Beijing office currently offers a monthly salary of up to 100,000 yuan (US$13,909) for candidates with a master's degree and papers published in world-class publications, with no previous work experience required, according to a job post on Chinese recruitment site Boss Zhipin. For engineer positions in deep-learning systems, data research and so-called full-stack development, the company's salary packages range from 700,000 yuan to 1.2 million yuan a year. In the company's various job posts, DeepSeek played up its capability in "top-tier graphics processing unit computing cluster" as a key advantage in luring fresh AI talent. It also promises more leeway for researchers to test viable ideas. DeepSeek's recruitment drive is expected to heat up the battle for young AI talent among China's Big Tech firms. Demand for natural-language-processing talent jumped 111 per cent year on year for the January-June period in 2024, according to a November report from Peking University and recruitment platform Zhilian Zhaopin. Demand for deep-learning talent, meanwhile, rose 61 per cent, according to the report. DeepSeek credits the "young geniuses" on its development team for the company's latest AI achievements. This team is made up almost exclusively of Chinese nationals from some of the country's top schools, such as Tsinghua University and Peking University. In an interview with Chinese online media outlet 36Kr in 2023, DeepSeek founder and chief executive Liang Wenfeng said most developers at DeepSeek were either fresh graduates, or those early in their AI career, in line with the company's preference for ability over experience when recruiting new employees. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
South China Morning Post
06-02-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
DeepSeek attracts China's young jobseekers as AI firm ramps up recruitment
Iris Deng in Shenzhen and Ann Cao in Shanghai Published: 8:00am, 6 Feb 2025 DeepSeek , China's hottest tech start-up , has become one of the most coveted destinations for young jobseekers across the country, as the company ramps up recruitment of artificial intelligence (AI) talent. Spots for dozens of jobs related to research and development in artificial general intelligence (AGI) have been opened by DeepSeek at its home base in Hangzhou , capital of eastern Zhejiang province, and in Beijing , according to the website of parent firm High-Flyer Quant and various Chinese recruitment sites. AGI is software with humanlike intelligence and the ability to self-teach, performing tasks that it was not necessarily trained for. The first working day after the Lunar New Year break already saw a few young jobseekers venture to DeepSeek's headquarters, in the hope of getting employed or striking up potential partnerships. 'If I can meet with them, I want to ask if they have any idea to develop AI agents,' said Hangzhou resident Liu Yuanjie, a fresh graduate who studied automation. Another jobseeker, surnamed Shen, said he drove for four days – from southwestern Sichuan province to Hangzhou – to apply for a job at DeepSeek, which he referred to as 'the nation's pride' because of its AI achievements. Shen said he would take any job at the firm, 'whether as a cleaner or a driver'.
