People across China are hailing the success of homegrown tech startup DeepSeek and its founder, after the company’s newest artificial intelligence model sent shock waves through Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

“DeepSeek overturns the US stocks overnight” one trending hashtag with tens of millions of views proclaimed on Chinese social media platform Weibo. “DeepSeek makes Meta panic,” said another, in reference to the US tech giant that’s invested heavily in developing its own AI models.

More than a dozen hashtags related to the cutting-edge technology were trending on Weibo early this week as DeepSeek surged to the top of international app store charts, surpassing American company OpenAI’s ChatGPT on Monday.

DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng was also hailed as a tech visionary who could help China usher in a culture of innovation to rival that of Silicon Valley.

The engineer-turned-entrepreneur, who rarely gives interviews, is known for hiring only domestic talent and keeping his AI models open source, allowing other companies or users to test and build upon the model.

Liang, a co-founder of AI-oriented hedge fund High-Flyer Quant, founded DeepSeek in 2023. The startup’s newest model DeepSeek R1, unveiled on January 20, can nearly match the capabilities of its far more famous American rivals, including OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama and Google’s Gemini. However, it cost less than $6 million to build, the company claims – a fraction of the investment from those other firms.

Famed tech investor Marc Andreessen hailed the model as a “Sputnik moment” and US President Donald Trump on Monday called the breakthrough a “wake-up call” for America in its rivalry with China. Technological dominance, especially in AI, has become a key battleground between the two powers, with the US in recent years limiting Chinese firms’ access to chips that could power rapid AI development.

Analysts say that more information is needed to verify DeepSeek’s claims about its product’s pricetag and point out that the app operates within the stringent restrictions on speech and information imposed by the Chinese government. That means its AI assistant’s answers to questions on the Tiananmen Square massacre or Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests will mirror Beijing’s line – or a response will be declined altogether.

But for many in China, the success of the technology – and Liang’s vision and ethos for DeepSeek – mark a significant step forward for the country in a competitive international arena.

“No matter how powerful the old guard is, they may be overturned overnight,” read one triumphant comment on Weibo with over a thousand likes.

“(Liang’s) achievements … can be called a national destiny,” another read.

‘Changing the rules of the game’

Born in the 1980s as the son of a primary school teacher, Liang grew up in a small city in China’s southern province of Guangdong. He went on to study information and electronic engineering at Zhejiang University, a prestigious school in China’s eastern tech hub Hangzhou, according to Chinese state media.

Early business associates interviewed by state-linked financial outlet Yicai in recent days remembered the future DeepSeek founder as a bit “nerdy” and recalled “a terrible haircut” he sported in the past.

Liang talked about his idea of training large AI models and “changing the rules of the game,” but no one took him seriously, the outlet reported, without naming the early associates. Such feats were typically only deemed possible for China’s tech giants like ByteDance or Alibaba, it said.

Liang co-founded his AI-oriented hedge fund High-Flyer Quant in 2015, less than decade after he finished his undergraduate studies, according to state media reports. The fund incorporates AI machine learning models into its operations, according to the company’s website.

At the same time, the firm was amassing computing power into a basketball court–sized AI supercomputer, becoming among the top companies in China in terms of processing capabilities – and the only one that was not a major tech giant, according to state-linked outlet The Paper.

In 2023, Liang founded DeepSeek, with a focus on advancing the field of general artificial intelligence – and, apparently, revamping China’s culture around innovation.

“We often say there’s a one or two-year gap between China and the US, but the real gap is between originality and imitation. If this doesn’t change, China will always be a follower,” Liang said in a rare media interview with the finance and tech-focused Chinese media outlet 36Kr last July.

The rise of DeepSeek roughly coincides with the wind-down of a heavy-handed state crackdown on the country’s tech giants by authorities seeking to re-assert control over a cohort of innovative private firms that had grown too powerful in the government’s eyes.

But Beijing has also placed tremendous emphasis on cultivating technological prowess, with Chinese leaders vowing over the past year to boost self-reliance and strength in technology – especially in the face of mounting tech competition with the United States.

Liang appeared to reference difficulties posed by US tech export controls – saying in the 36Kr interview last year that his company’s challenges have not been about money, but the embargo on “high-end chips.”

But he also expressed optimism about China’s ability to compete in the future.

“When society allows hardcore innovators to succeed, collective thinking will change. We just need more concrete examples and processes,” Liang told the outlet.

‘We don’t do mediocre’

The company, which has teams in Beijing and Hangzhou, has remained small, with just under 140 researchers and engineers, according to state media – a far cry from the large firms both in China and the US that have led the creation of AI models.

DeepSeek’s employees have been recruited domestically, Liang said in the same interview last year, describing his team as fresh graduates and doctorate students from top Chinese universities.

“The top 50 talents may not be in China, but maybe we can create such people ourselves,” he told 36Kr, noting that the work is divided “naturally” by who has what strengths. “Innovation first requires confidence. This confidence is usually more obvious in young people,” he added.

Zihan Wang, a former DeepSeek employee now studying in the US, told MIT Technology Review in an interview published this month that the company offered “a luxury that few fresh graduates would get at any company” – access to abundant computing resources and the freedom to experiment.

The whole team shared a “collaborative culture” around research, Wang said.

Active recruitment ads on the DeepSeek website and major job seeking sites show the company hiring deep learning researchers, engineers, and user interface designers.

Among them, the highest paid engineers’ positions are listed with a monthly salary range of up to 90,000 yuan ($12,400). By comparison, the higher end of the base pay for a Google software engineer is upwards of $29,000, according to tech industry salary insight platform levels.fyi.

A post on DeepSeek’s official Wechat social media account declares that the company’s devotion is to “exploring the essence of AGI” or artificial general intelligence. “We don’t do mediocre things and answer the biggest questions with curiosity and a far-reaching vision,” the post added.

Detonating a grenade under the chin rather than being captured. Using a fellow soldier to lure out attack drones. Removing body armor plates and helmets to enable faster attacks on foot. Writing pledges of allegiance to North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

These are the brutal and near-suicidal tactics of North Korean soldiers, who have, since November, been deployed to repel Ukraine’s incursion in the southern Russian border region of Kursk.

Up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia, according to Western intelligence reports, which say around 4,000 troops have been killed or injured.

Ahead of a likely escalation before any peace talks, Moscow is experiencing manpower shortages and Pyongyang is expected to send reinforcements, according to Ukrainian defense intelligence.

The Ukrainians swiftly open fire and dive back. South Korean lawmakers were told by the country’s intelligence service, who have provided assistance to Kyiv, that the soldier in the video’s last words were: “General Kim Jong Un.”

“They can just brazenly go into battle until they are neutralized,” Pokémon said, adding: “Despite all attempts to call them to surrender, they will continue to fight.”

He added that the North Koreans were unprepared for Ukraine’s battlefield realities, where modern drone combat and archaic trench warfare have led to significant casualties.

While the North Korean soldiers are “all young, trained, hardy fighters,”Pokémon said, they would have not previously faced a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) – which have transformed the war in Ukraine – in combat. “They are prepared for the realities of war in 1980 at best,” he said.

Amur, a company commander, said some North Koreans removed their helmets and the heavy protective plates from their body armour, to make them lighter on their feet and enable a faster assault at Ukrainian positions.

“They’re very maneuverable and they run and move very quickly,” he said. “They’re hard to catch, especially with a drone,” Amur added, explaining that they often weave an indirect path towards Ukrainian defenses, as if trained to not run in a straight line.

The North Koreans also leave anti-tank mines on roads as they go, Amur said. “Every shelter, every car they just destroy with anti-tank grenade launchers. They move very fast, (they) literally run,” he said.

“In their backpacks is the minimum of water, small bottles – up to a liter,” Amur said. “There are no additional warm clothes – no hats, no scarves, nothing.”

Amur said the North Koreans appear to have the more modern versions of Russian standard issue equipment, with most in possession of around 10 magazines, 5-10 grenades, machine gun ammunition and mines. The North Korean soldier was carrying an AK-12 assault rifle – the newer model of the standard issue AK-47, Amur said.

Notes, fake military ID found

Earlier this month, Ukraine captured two North Korean soldiers, and released video of the injured men, speaking Korean and receiving treatment, as evidence of Pyongyang’s robust military support for Moscow.

Russian shelling escalated as the soldier was captured, Ukrainian officials said, aimed at stopping the North Korean soldier from being taken alive.

Ukrainian troops have taken DNA samples – saliva swabs and locks of hair – from the dead, which they said showed them to be of East Asian extraction, and provided further evidence of North Korean involvement.

The North Korean soldier seen detonating the grenade in the video carried a fake Russian military ID which identified him as 29-year-old Ment Chat. The document said he joined the Russian army in October and was from the Russian border region of Tuva, near Mongolia.

One sheet of paper is peppered with pledges of allegiance to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and of victory in battle. It is unclear if the notes were meant to emphasize the soldier’s loyalty if killed in battle to protect their surviving families, or if it truly reflects their mindset.

Another note retrieved from the bodies extols North Korea’s prowess in combat and derides their enemy, Ukraine.

“The hammer of death to the unknown and the puppet trash is not far off. We wield the powerful force that makes them tremble in fear. An invincible and certain-to-win battle.”

Another note, from the collection said: “I will demonstrate unparalleled bravery to its fullest. World, watch closely.”

Acts of ‘disloyalty’ recorded

Ukrainian officials who reviewed the papers said the North Korean units consider their involvement in Russia’s war as an opportunity to gain battle experience to assist their leader in any future conflict nearer home.

While North Korea is one of the most militarized societies on earth – with an estimated 1.2 million armed service personnel and mandatory military service from age 17 – its troops have had very limited exposure to the battlefield since the Korean War, where an armistice brought hostilities to a halt in 1953.

Another document, likely written by an officer, recorded acts of disloyalty by North Korean subordinates – a common practice in the totalitarian state, where citizens are encouraged to inform on each other.

One note said a soldier had “engaged in an unimaginably disgraceful act by stealing supplies.” Another note said a different soldier had “failed to uphold the Supreme Commander’s dignity and placed his personal interests above all.”

Other papers contained the radio codes of the North Korean force, but also contained notes on new tactics to counter drone attacks, from which Amur said North Koreans had suffered major losses.

“My unit could take out about 30 enemy soldiers in a day’s work, just by throwing grenades on their heads. They didn’t understand what to do,” he said.

Labelled “How to destroy drones,” the handwritten North Korean note suggested using soldiers as bait.

“When a drone is spotted… at a distance of about 10-12 meters, one out of three people should unconditionally lure it, and the other two should take aim and shoot.

“Another method is, since shells will not fall again in the same crater, take cover in the crater…” it read.

Amur described a ruthless opponent. “They don’t take our prisoners. All of our servicemen we found are shot in the back of the head.”