BEIJING: The Chinese startup triggered a $1 trillion-plus sell-off in global equities markets last month with a cut-price AI reasoning model that outperformed many Western competitors. Now, the Hangzhou-based firm is accelerating the launch of the successor to January’s R1 model, according to three people familiar with the company.

Deepseek had planned to release R2 in early May but now wants it out as early as possible, two of them said, without providing specifics. The company says it hopes the new model will produce better coding and be able to reason in languages beyond English. Details of the accelerated timeline for R2’s release have not been previously reported.

Rivals are still digesting the implications of R1, which was built with less-powerful Nvidia chips but is competitive with those developed at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars by US tech giants. “The launch of DeepSeek’s R2 model could be a pivotal moment in the AI industry,” said Vijayasimha Alilughatta, chief operating officer of Indian tech services provider Zensar. DeepSeek’s success at creating cost-effective AI models “would likely spur companies worldwide to accelerate their own efforts ... breaking the stranglehold of the few dominant players in the field,” he said.

Beijing instructs Chinese AI startup founder Liang not to engage with media without approval

R2 is likely to worry the US government, which has identified leadership of AI as a national priority. Its release may further galvanise Chinese authorities and companies, dozens of which say they have started integrating DeepSeek models into their products.

Little is known about DeepSeek, whose founder Liang Wenfeng became a billionaire through his quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer. Liang, who was described by a former employer as “low-key and introverted,” has not spoken to any media since July 2024.

Different path

Liang was born in 1985 in a rural village in the southern province of Guangdong. He later obtained communication engineering degrees at the elite Zhejiang University. One of his first jobs was running a research department at a smart imaging firm in Shanghai. His then-boss, Zhou Chaoen, told state media on Feb 9 that Liang had hired prize-winning algorithm engineers and operated with a “flat management style.”

At DeepSeek and High-Flyer, Liang has similarly shunned the practices of Chinese tech giants known for rigid top-down management, low pay for young employees and “996” — working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week. Liang opened his Beijing office within walking distance of Tsinghua University and Peking University,

China’s two most prestigious education institutions.

Beijing now celebrates DeepSeek, but has instructed it not to engage with the media without approval, according to a person familiar with Chinese official thinking.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2025