Who Is the Founder of DeepSeek?深度求索的创始人是谁？

The Chinese company DeepSeek seemed to have come out of nowhere early this year when it upturned markets. Here’s what to know about Liang Wenfeng， the engineer who started it.

中国公司深度求索（DeepSeek）今年初宛如一颗新星，横空出世，撼动全球科技市场。以下是关于其创始人梁文锋的介绍。

In technology， many entrepreneurs get only one defining act. Liang Wenfeng， the founder of DeepSeek， is already on his second.

在科技领域，许多创业者往往只有一个决定性的壮举。而DeepSeek的创始人梁文锋已经开启了他的第二次征程。

The engineer， described by colleagues as introspective， first made his mark in China’s investment world in the late 2010s， cofounding a hedge fund that used artificial-intelligence models to deliver strong returns and attracted billions of dollars in capital.

这位被同事描述为“内向”的工程师最初于2010年代末在中国投资界崭露头角。他跟人联合创立了一家对冲基金，借助人工智能模型斩获丰厚收益，吸引了数十亿美元的资金流入。

Buoyed by profits and wary of Beijing’s tightening grip on speculative trading， Mr. Liang pivoted in 2023. He poured money into artificial intelligence， betting on A.I. chips and assembling a team to build China’s answer to the Silicon Valley front-runner OpenAI.

得益于丰厚盈利，同时也考虑到国家对投机性交易监管趋严，梁先生于2023年做出战略转向。他大力投资人工智能领域，押注人工智能芯片，组建团队打造能与硅谷领军企业OpenAI比肩的中国人工智能企业。

Now， just two years later， DeepSeek has upended the global tech landscape. Here is what you need to know about Liang Wenfeng.

如今，仅仅过去两年，DeepSeek便已改写全球科技版图。下面带你深入了解梁文锋其人。

He’s a deeply technical engineer. That puts him in a line of other successful Chinese tech executives.

他是深谙技术的工程师，凭此跻身中国成功的科技高管之列。

When Chinese technologists debated why the country’s biggest investors and tech firms failed to anticipate the rise of generative A.I.， many pointed to a single culprit： China’s companies were obsessed with quick returns in a fiercely competitive market.

中国技术专家曾探讨，为何国内大型投资机构和科技企业未能预见到生成式人工智能的兴起。很多人认为，主要原因在于，激烈的市场竞争中，中国企业过度追逐短期回报。

Armed with those lessons—and backed by his own trading windfall—Mr. Liang has made it clear his ambitions lie far beyond commercial applications.

汲取这些经验教训，又凭借自身在交易中获得的巨额收益，梁先生明确表示，他的志向远不止于商业应用。

His focus， he has said， is on what he sees as China’s only real chance to catch up with the United States. That means taking bold， idealistic swings at fundamental A.I. challenges. His primary ambition is to create artificial general intelligence or A.G.I.—the elusive goal of building machines that can think and learn like humans.

他曾言，他所关注的是他眼中中国追赶美国真正具有的唯一机会。这意味着，他要大胆且理想化地直面人工智能基础研究方面的挑战。他的首要目标是创造通用人工智能（AGI）——打造出能像人类一样思考和学习的机器，这一目标很难达到。

When DeepSeek undercut1 its Chinese competition last year by offering its model at bargain prices， forcing larger rivals into their own price cuts， Mr. Liang dismissed the significance.

去年，DeepSeek以低价推出其模型，迫使规模更大的竞争对手纷纷降价。但梁先生认为这一举措并无重大意义。

“To be honest， we didn’t really care—it was just something we did along the way，” he said in a widely shared interview with 36Kr， a Chinese tech outlet. “Providing cloud services is not our main goal. Our aim is still to achieve A.G.I.”

他在接受中国科技媒体36氪的采访时表示：“说实话我们不太care这件事2，只是顺便做了这件事。提供云服务不是我们的主要目标，我们的目标还是去实现AGI。”这次采访之后被广为传播。

In his convictions that superhuman artificial intelligence is just around the corner3， Mr. Liang sounds a lot like OpenAI’s chief executive， Sam Altman. But the similarities end there. Mr. Liang， a low-profile executive with a deep technical background in A.I. engineering， more fits the mold of Pony Ma， a co-founder of China’s Tencent， than Silicon Valley’s charismatic visionaries.

梁先生坚信，超人类人工智能即将诞生，这一点与OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥尔特曼不谋而合。但除此之外，两人再无更多相似之处。梁先生行事低调，在人工智能工程领域技术背景深厚，比起硅谷那些魅力非凡的梦想家，他更像中国腾讯公司的联合创始人马化腾。

He started as a hedge fund trader. And then he turned to pure A.I. research.

他从对冲基金交易员起步，而后投身纯粹的人工智能研究。

In many ways， Mr. Liang’s career traces the major shifts in China’s technology landscape.

在诸多方面，梁先生的职业生涯映射出中国科技领域的重大变化。

His 2010 thesis at Zhejiang University tackled what would soon become one of the hottest topics in Chinese A.I.： improving intelligent tracking algorithms for surveillance cameras.

2010年，他在浙江大学撰写的硕士论文探讨的主题不久后便成为中国人工智能领域的热门话题：改进监控摄像头的智能追踪算法。

Later， the hedge fund he co-founded was buffeted by regulatory pressures， eventually forcing the closure of one of its main investment products， according to Peter Alexander， managing director of Z-Ben Advisors， a market consultancy， who researches Chinese hedge funds.

据研究中国对冲基金的市场咨询公司哲奔咨询董事总经理彼得·亚历山大介绍，后来，梁先生参与创立的对冲基金受到监管压力冲击，最终其一款主要投资产品被迫关停。

“Between 2019 and 2023， they wanted to have this side project so that their Ph.D.s felt like they had something to do and so DeepSeek originated from that，” Mr. Alexander said.

亚历山大透露：“2019年至2023年期间，他们开展了这个副业项目，为团队里的博士们提供研究方向，DeepSeek便由此发端。”

“But it really went into overdrive4 when their primary investment product had to shut down in February of 2024，” he said.

他还补充道：“但在2024年2月主要投资产品关停后，这个项目才真正进入高速发展阶段。”

In a way， it was China’s crackdown on the private sector that nudged DeepSeek toward long-term A.I. research.