The founder of artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek, touted as 2025's "biggest dark horse" in the open-source large language model (LLM) arena, emerged as the industry's new face in China at a symposium hosted by Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Monday.

The man who founded DeepSeek, the artificial intelligence company that rattled the U.S. stock market, is 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, a former hedge fund manager who said he shifted into tech to close the gap between China and the U.S. in the AI industry.

Liang Wenfeng, the 39-year-old founder of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, has in the matter of weeks become the face of China's tech industry and its hope of overcoming an ever-tightening noose of export controls imposed by the United States.