Last updated: October 27, 2026
Liang Wenfeng is the founder and CEO of DeepSeek, the Hangzhou AI lab whose cheap, open models shook Silicon Valley in January 2025. On Oct. 27, 2026, he made the Hurun China Rich List for the first time, debuting at No. 7 with an estimated US$41.7 billion. Hurun named him the list’s top new face. He didn’t get rich in AI. He got rich as a quant trader running High-Flyer, a hedge fund that trades with machine learning, and that money paid for the chips DeepSeek was built on. Hurun calls him the “lowest-profile member of the Top 10.” He has given only two known media interviews, so much of his biography rests on a small set of sources. We’ve noted where the record is thin.
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Quick facts
Born: 1985, Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, China
Age: 41, per Hurun
Companies: Co-founder of High-Flyer, a quant hedge fund (2015–2016). Founder and CEO of DeepSeek (2023).
Education: Zhejiang University. Bachelor’s in electronic information engineering (2007) and master’s in information and communication engineering (2010).
Lives: Hangzhou, per Hurun
Net worth: US$41.7 billion (Hurun China Rich List 2026, No. 7)
Known for: DeepSeek-R1, the low-cost reasoning model that set off a record one-day drop in Nvidia’s market value in January 2025
Who is Liang Wenfeng?
Liang grew up in a village in Wuchuan, near Zhanjiang in southern Guangdong. Both of his parents were primary-school teachers, according to Chinese media profiles. Local reports cited by CNBC say he taught himself calculus in middle school. He started at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou in 2002, at 17, and stayed through a master’s degree. His master’s thesis was about tracking objects with cheap surveillance cameras.
He found what he wanted to do during the 2008 financial crisis. While still a student, he and a few classmates began collecting market data and building machine-learning trading models. Jim Simons, the mathematician behind Renaissance Technologies, was his inspiration. Liang later wrote the preface to the Chinese edition of The Man Who Solved the Market, Gregory Zuckerman’s biography of Simons.
With Zhejiang classmates, he co-founded the quant fund High-Flyer in 2015 and 2016. It became one of China’s best-known quant funds and bought a lot of computing power. In 2021 it ran a supercomputer with about 10,000 Nvidia A100 chips. Liang told the Chinese outlet 36Kr in 2023 that the fund had acquired them before U.S. export controls cut China off.
In 2023 he turned those chips toward building general-purpose AI and spun the effort out as DeepSeek. No venture firm wanted in at first, so High-Flyer paid for it. DeepSeek hires mostly young researchers educated in China, runs on a flat structure and releases its models openly. Liang has said he still spends his days “reading papers, writing code, and participating in group discussions,” according to his 2024 interview with 36Kr’s Waves.
What sets him apart from Western AI founders is how much he still owns. After DeepSeek’s first outside fundraising, in June 2026, Bloomberg estimated his stake at about 78%. Investors in that round got no voting rights.
Career timeline
1985: Born in Zhanjiang, Guangdong.
2002: Enters Zhejiang University at 17.
2007: Earns a bachelor’s in electronic information engineering.
2008: During the financial crisis, starts building machine-learning trading models with classmates.
2010: Earns a master’s in information and communication engineering.
2013: Co-founds Hangzhou Jacobi Investment Management with classmate Xu Jin.
2015–2016: Co-founds High-Flyer.
2019: High-Flyer sets up an AI research unit.
2021: High-Flyer’s Fire-Flyer II supercomputer runs on about 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs.
2023: Launches DeepSeek, funded entirely by High-Flyer.
May 2024: DeepSeek-V2’s low prices set off an AI price war in China.
January 2025: DeepSeek-R1 comes out. The app tops global download charts, and Nvidia loses about US$589 billion in market value in a single day. Liang meets Premier Li Qiang.
February 2025: Attends a symposium of private-sector leaders hosted by Xi Jinping.
September 2025: The R1 paper, with Liang as corresponding author, is published in Nature.
December 2025: Nature names him to its Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025.
April 2026: DeepSeek releases a preview of V4, adapted for Huawei’s Ascend chips.
June 2026: DeepSeek closes its first outside round, more than US$7 billion at a valuation over US$50 billion.
July 2026: Bloomberg calls him the world’s richest founder of an AI-model company.
Oct. 27, 2026: Debuts at No. 7 on the Hurun China Rich List.
Notable deals & projects
High-Flyer: The quant fund that made his money and paid for DeepSeek’s early computing power.
DeepSeek-V3 and R1 (December 2024 and January 2025): Open models that performed close to top U.S. systems at a fraction of the reported cost. The R1 paper said the reasoning-training stage cost about US$294,000, though that excludes the cost of building the V3 base model.
DeepSeek-V4 (April 2026): An open-weights preview with a 1-million-token context window, built to run on Huawei chips.
The 2026 fundraise: More than 50 billion yuan, about US$7.4 billion according to The Information and Reuters. Tencent and battery maker CATL were among the largest outside backers. Liang himself put in about 20 billion yuan. Commercial investors came in through a partnership Liang manages, got no voting rights and agreed to a five-year lock-up. China’s state AI fund invested directly.
Want the full story? Read our profile of the U.S. AI founder Liang just passed in wealth — Who Is Dario Amodei? — then subscribe free.
What he’s known for
Doing more with less: DeepSeek showed that frontier-level AI could be built with far fewer chips and far less money than U.S. labs were spending.
Open models: He has argued that closed-source advantages don’t last.
Starting a price war: DeepSeek’s low API prices pushed rivals like Alibaba and Baidu to cut their own prices sharply.
Silence: He is known for avoiding the press. Zuckerman wrote in The Wall Street Journal that, like Simons, Liang is very hard to reach.
Control: Unlike most AI founders, he still owns most of his company and kept control even after taking outside money.
In the news
Oct. 27, 2026: Liang debuts on the Hurun China Rich List at No. 7 with US$41.7 billion. Hurun said he was left off last year “because DeepSeek previously presented itself as a research lab,” and that “this year the market priced the lab at over US$50bn.” Three DeepSeek colleagues, Zheng Dawei, Li Huan and Chen Zhe, made the list too. Hurun’s Rupert Hoogewerf called Liang “the figurehead of Chinese AI” and said he could one day be China’s richest person.
July 2026: Bloomberg reported that Liang’s net worth had more than doubled to US$36 billion, making him the richest creator of AI models in the world. That put him ahead of OpenAI’s Greg Brockman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei on its index.
Mid-2026 (reported, unconfirmed): A transcript of what was described as a May 2026 private investor meeting spread online. In it, Liang reportedly said DeepSeek was one to two years behind U.S. labs and that the gap was mostly about computing power. DeepSeek has not confirmed the transcript. Later reports from Bloomberg and The Information about a second, larger round and possible IPO preparations are also unconfirmed by the company.
Quotes
“We believe that as the economy develops, China should gradually become a contributor instead of freeriding.” — Interview with 36Kr’s Waves, July 2024 (ChinaTalk translation)
“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.” — Same interview
“Chinese AI can’t be in the position of following forever.” — Same interview
Controversies / criticism
The chips: DeepSeek’s access to advanced Nvidia hardware has drawn scrutiny from U.S. officials and analysts. Liang has said publicly that High-Flyer bought its A100s before export controls took effect.
The cost claims: Critics say the headline training costs, like the roughly US$294,000 for R1, understate the real spending because they leave out the base model, research and hardware.
Censorship and security: Like other Chinese chatbots, DeepSeek’s app follows Chinese content rules. Several governments have restricted its use on official devices.
Transparency: The company says very little publicly, and most of what’s known about Liang’s views comes from two interviews and reports of private meetings.
Net worth & money
Hurun estimates Liang’s fortune at US$41.7 billion as of Sept. 1, 2026, which ranks him No. 7 in China. Bloomberg’s index put him at US$36 billion in July 2026 and estimated his DeepSeek stake at about 78% after the June round. Most of his wealth is DeepSeek stock, which is private, so these figures depend on its latest private valuation and could swing.
FAQ
Who is Liang Wenfeng?
He is the Chinese founder and CEO of the AI lab DeepSeek and co-founder of the quant hedge fund High-Flyer.
How much is Liang Wenfeng worth?
Hurun estimated US$41.7 billion as of Sept. 1, 2026, enough for No. 7 on the 2026 Hurun China Rich List.
How old is Liang Wenfeng?
He was born in 1985. Hurun lists him as 41.
Where did Liang Wenfeng go to school?
Zhejiang University, where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s in engineering.
Who owns DeepSeek?
Liang controls it. Bloomberg estimated he owned about 78% after the June 2026 round. Tencent, CATL and a state-backed AI fund are among the outside investors.
Why is Liang Wenfeng so private?
He has never explained it publicly. He has given only two known media interviews, both to 36Kr in 2023 and 2024. Hurun calls him the lowest-profile member of China’s Top 10.
Further reading
Hurun China Rich List 2026 — Hurun Report
ByteDance’s Zhang Yiming tops China rich list at US$99.7 billion as AI fuels fortunes — South China Morning Post
The Chinese finance whizz whose DeepSeek AI model stunned the world — Nature
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng is world’s richest creator of AI models — Bloomberg via The Straits Times
Who Is Dario Amodei? — The Profile
Who Is Buddy Shah? The Man Who Holds Power Over Anthropic — The Profile
Who Is Zhang Yiming? — The Profile
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