Liang Wenfeng Net Worth Explained — The DeepSeek CEO Who Built China’s ChatGPT Challenger in Just Two Years

• Liang Wenfeng’s net worth is estimated to exceed at least $1 billion.
• The CEO currently holds approximately 84% of DeepSeek and at least 76% of High-Flyer.
• Beginning with an AI-powered hedge fund, Wenfeng’s contributions to AI has created a historic disruption to the global AI race.

Liang Wenfeng, the chief executive of Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, has quickly become one of the most talked-about tech executives in the world.

After releasing DeepSeek’s AI model, which outperformed OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a fraction of the price, the 40-year-old tech titan is now receiving recognition as a formidable competitor in the global AI race.

Liang Wenfeng’s Net Worth

According to Forbes estimates, Wenfeng’s net worth exceeded at least $1 billion as of January 2025.

Wenfeng, 40, has made most of his wealth from co-founding DeepSeek and quantitative trading hedge fund High-Flyer Capital Management.

According to Forbes, the CEO holds approximately 84% of DeepSeek and at least 76% of High-Flyer.

As of 2025, analysts estimate the Chinese AI firm’s valuation to be at least $1 billion . Meanwhile, High Flyer manages around $8 billion in assets, with Liang’s stake valued at approximately $180 million.

Wenfeng’s Rise to Riches

Born in 1985 in Guangdong province, China, Wenfeng demonstrated a talent in mathematics from a young age.

According to Chinese media reports, the DeepSeek founder obtained an electronic and communication engineering degree at Zhejiang University in 2006 and a master’s degree four years later.

During his studies, Wenfeng became fascinated with AI and automation and published a thesis in 2010 focused on improving AI surveillance systems.

Alongside revision, he explored how to automate trading on China’s domestic stock market.

Three years after graduating, in 2013, Wenfeng and a classmate founded the investment firm Hangzhou Jacobi, reportedly named after the German mathematician Carl Jacobi.

High-Flyer Capital Management

In 2015, Wenfeng and two former classmates launched High-Flyer, an AI-powered trading hedge fund.

Upon the hedge fund’s launch, the then 30-year-old Wenfeng had already deployed around 100 AI chips to power High-Flyer’s investment decisions.

A few years later, the hedge fund became one of China’s most successful quantitative trading firms.

Wenfeng had also spent almost $30 million on bolstering the hedge fund’s AI power, now building specialist facilities to power up to 1,100 high-tech chips.

Following this, he set up Hangzhou High-Flyer AI, which aimed to promote further research into AI algorithms and applications.

In 2021, High-Flyer recorded  $14 billion in assets under management. To further bolster the company and its AI research, Wenfeng spent $155 million on 10,000 Nvidia A100 chips.

However, despite back-to-back record returns for several consecutive years and outperforming the Chinese CSI 500 stock index in 2020, the hedge fund’s fortune began to change in 2021.

In December 2021, High-Flyer was forced to apologize on social media for its poor returns, which were reportedly partially due to AI mistiming trades.

But by the end of 2022, High-Flyer had recovered and returned to outperforming the market.

DeepSeek Launch

In April 2023, DeepSeek was born. Following years of AI research through High-Flyer, Wenfeng decided to fund a new company to build an artificial general intelligence model.

This also coincided with a scaleback on the High-Flyer hedge fund. In October 2023, the company announced it was reducing its assets under management to $6 billion.

DeepSeek released its V3 model in December after being trained on just $6 million. This was a significantly smaller budget than leading AI companies, such as OpenAI’s $100 million plus for its GPT 4 model.

“For users, DeepSeek provides attractive scope for largescale automation, with its free availability and capacity to create chatbots rivaling other models,” Agur Jõgi, chief technology officer of Pipedrive, told CCN.

However, concerns surrounding data protection remain an issue, Jõgi said.

The Disruption of DeepSeek

The release of DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through U.S. markets as Wenfeng’s model has emerged as a leading player in a race once thought to be astronomically expensive.

Upon entering the U.S. market, the Chinese AI app sent American tech shares plummeting as doubts arose over cash-hemorrhaging market leaders like OpenAI.

However, despite enjoying initial success, Wenfeng’s AI company is now receiving overseas pushback.

On January 29, Wiz Research published a report warning that a DeepSeek database had been left exposed, exposing “over a million lines of log streams with highly sensitive information.”

The report came one day after the Italian Data Protection Authority ordered a nationwide ban on DeepSeek, becoming one of many countries to file restrictions against the Chinese-made application.

In Wenfeng’s Own Words

• “If you are pursuing short-term goals, it is right to find people with ready experience . But if you look at the long-term, experience is not that important. Basic skills, creativity, and passion are much more important.”
• “Open source, publishing papers, in fact, do not cost us anything. For technical talent , having others follow your innovation gives a great sense of accomplishment.”
• “In the face of disruptive technologies, moats created by closed source are temporary. Even OpenAI’s closed source approach can’t prevent others from catching up. So we anchor our value in our team — our colleagues grow through this process, accumulate know-how, and form an organization and culture capable of innovation. That’s our moat.”