Deepseek raises $15 billion in challenge to leading US labs

In a major fundraising round, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has raised approximately US$15 billion, marking one of the country's largest ever and signaling its ambitions to compete globally with tech giants such as Anthropic and OpenAI. The Hangzhou-based firm initially aimed to raise 50 billion yuan, but after multiple negotiations with investors, the final amount reached 80 billion yuan.

Notable investors in the round included battery pioneer Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and WeChat-operator Tencent. DeepSeek's funding comes after the company demonstrated the ability to compete with Silicon Valley's leaders at a fraction of the cost, triggering a US$1 trillion meltdown in global markets in 2025. Despite this breakthrough, DeepSeek still lags behind US frontier labs in terms of financial resources.

The startup is preparing for an initial public offering, which would be a significant milestone for Chinese markets. DeepSeek has been aggressively investing in AI data centers and developing low-cost open-source models to pressure domestic competitors and gain customers in both China and overseas markets. The company has also faced competition from other major players, such as Alibaba and ByteDance, who have introduced low-cost AI services and made them open-source for customer modification.