| Liang Wenfeng | |
|---|---|
| 梁文锋 | |
| Born | 1985 (age 39–40) Zhanjiang, Guangdong, People's Republic of China |
| Education | Zhejiang University |
| Known for | Co-founder of High-Flyer Founder of DeepSeek |
Liang Wenfeng (Chinese: 梁文锋; pinyin: Liáng Wénfēng; born 1985) is a Chinese entrepreneur and businessman who is the co-founder of the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer as well as the founder and CEO of its backed artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek.
He is considered the first quantitative investor to engage in AI entrepreneurship in China.
Early life and education
Liang was born in 1985 in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province. His father was a primary school teacher.
Liang attended Zhejiang University where he majored in electrical engineering and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2006. In 2007, Liang was admitted to the university as a graduate student in information and communication engineering where he focused on machine vision research.
In 2008, while studying at university, Liang formed a team with his classmates to accumulate data related to financial markets. He also led the team to explore quantitative trading using machine learning and other technologies. At this time, the 2007–2008 financial crisis was at its peak.
There are rumours that Frank Wang invited Liang to join DJI. However while Liang believed AI would change the world, he decided to start his own business instead.
In 2010, Liang Wenfeng graduated from the university with a master's degree. His thesis was "Research on Target Tracking Algorithm Based on Low Cost PTZ Cameras".
Career
After graduating, Liang moved to a cheap flat in Chengdu where he experimented with ways to apply AI to various fields. These ventures failed until he tried applying AI to finance.
In 2015, Liang and two other engineering classmates from Zhejiang University founded High-Flyer. The team relied on mathematics and AI to make investment with the goal of becoming the world's top quantitative fund.
In 2019, Liang founded High-Flyer AI which was dedicated to research on AI algorithms and its basic applications. By this time, High-flyer had over 10 billion yuan in assets under management AUM).
On 30 August 2019, Liang Wenfeng delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Future of Quantitative Investment in China from a Programmer's Perspective" at the Golden Bull Awards ceremony which sparked heated discussions. Liang stated that the criterion for determining what is quantitative or non-quantitative is whether the investment decision is made by quantitative methods or by people. Quantitative funds don't have portfolio managers making the decisions and instead are just servers. He also state High-Flyer's mission is to improve the effectiveness of China's secondary market.
In February 2021, Gregory Zuckerman's book "The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution " was published. Liang wrote the preface for Chinese edition of the book where he stated that whenever he encountered difficulties at work, he would think of Simons’ words "There must be a way to model prices".
In May 2023, Liang announced there would be a development of artificial general intelligence and launched DeepSeek. During that month in an interview with 36Kr, Liang stated that High-Flyer had acquired over 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs before the US government imposed AI chip restrictions on China. That laid the foundation for DeepSeek to operate as an LLM developer. He also stated DeepSeek gets funding from High-Flyer. This was because when DeepSeek was founded, venture capital firms were reluctant in providing funding as it was unlikely that it would be able to generate an exit in a short period of time. As the goal was long-term, DeepSeek sought employees who had ability and passion rather than experience.
In July 2024, Liang was interviewed again by 36Kr. He stated that when DeepSeek V2 was released and triggered an AI price war in China, it came as a huge surprise as the team didn't expect pricing to be so sensitive. He also stated that as China's economy develops, it should gradually become a contributor instead of freeriding. What is lacking in China's innovation is not capital but a lack of confidence and knowledge on organizing talent into it. DeepSeek hasn't hired anyone particularly special and employees tend to be locally educated. When it comes to disruptive technologies, closed source approaches can only temporarily delay others in catching up.
On 20 January 2025, Liang received media attention when he attended a symposium in Beijing held by Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Liang who was considered an industry expert was asked to provide opinions and suggestions for a draft government work report. Liang's participation reflected DeepSeek's growing prominence in the AI industry as well as reaffirming AI as a national strategic priority for China.
See also
References
- ^ "DeepSeek创始人梁文锋，广东人，仅靠百名中国程序员，赶超OpenAI". QQ (in Chinese (China)). 19 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ Jiang, Ben (21 January 2025). "Beijing puts spotlight on China's new face of AI, DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ Schneider, Jordan (27 November 2024). "Deepseek: The Quiet Giant Leading China's AI Race". ChinaTalk. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ Ottinger, Lily (9 December 2024). "Deepseek: From Hedge Fund to Frontier Model Maker". ChinaTalk. Archived from the original on 28 December 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- "Billions Going to China's Quants Takes Fight to Global Funds". Bloomberg News. 31 May 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- Jiang, Ben; Perezi, Bien (1 January 2025). "Meet DeepSeek: the Chinese start-up that is changing how AI models are trained". South China Morning Post.