The DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence platform with a logo of the little blue whale 8 days after the official release of 22 pages of its code and its global release through all available platforms in the world, has caused an impact inversely proportional to the funds spent – according to its creators – to create its rival awe, virtually until recently, artificial intelligence monopoly, Chat GPT.

The DeepSeek has not only rattled the US tech stock market indices but also the entire scientific community in the mighty Silicon Valley. The fact that DeepSeek’s creators published the entire code they used to bring new data to the AI field was enough in itself.

Beyond the technical and financial data, the appearance – some American analysts call it a technological revelation – of DeepSeek has raised legitimate questions about the person behind the innovative new platform. The 39-year-old Liang Wenfeng is the person who, despite his low profile, is currently under the glaring spotlight of publicity, interest and research on at least two continents.

But who is Liang Wenfeng?

The 39-year-old Chinese founder of his startup DeepSeek was unknown not only in the West but also to most of China’s decision-making centers. On January 20, everything will change when Liang Wenfeng will be invited with 8 other people from the country’s cutting-edge technology sector to give a speech at a very private event hosted by China’s Premier Li Qiang. What was said at that event and what the speech of the man responsible for losses that touched $1 trillion yesterday in US markets included, remains unknown, as do those who participated as audience members at that event.

Wenfeng keeps an extremely low profile and this is evidenced by the fact that he has only given two interviews before January 20, and those were in 2023 when he created his tech startup. DeepSeek’s originator may not appear in the media and tends not to promote his work and himself personally but a year ago one of the well-known Chinese businessmen the CEO of Chinese tech giant, Baidu, had foreshadowed what was to come by speaking at the same Chinese Premier’s banquet.

Robin Li had spoken of the advent of open source innovation in artificial intelligence, even giving an economic spin by talking about a solution that does not require, in fact he had talked about bypassing, the costly and scarce sophisticated American microchips.

Despite the veil of mystery still covering the creator of DeepSeek, sources close to him quoted by major Chinese media outlets say that the success of the app was mainly due to the creator’s insistence not to focus on creating an app initially but to spend the funds he had managed to raise and the talent at his disposal to create a solution comparable to Chat GPT that would have the power of operating models combined with very low cost.

In one of the two interviews Liang Wenfeng has given, he makes his philosophy clear: “We can’t get stuck in the notion that Chinese technology and artificial intelligence are inferior to American technology. Regardless of whether there is a deficit, our goal must be innovation. For the last thirty years Chinese technology has only been about making profit, we have never been concerned with innovation. We have let the market drive developments, not the other way around.”

The creator of DeepSeek was born and raised in China’s southern Guangdong province one of the provinces that in the 80s and 90s introduced capitalist models of public resource management. At the age of 17, he will attend Zhejiang University in the field of Electronics and Communications and has a Master’s degree in Information and Communication Networks from the same university since 2010. Liang Wenfeng since 2015 is a co-founder of a hedge fund which specializes in creating mathematical algorithms for investment a fund that in 6 years managed to raise $13.8 billion from the Chinese market. In 2023 he announced that he is moving to found DeepSeek and that his focus will now be on innovation and artificial intelligence.

DeepSeek currently employs some of the top young Chinese developers and the company invests heavily in talent and new ideas by offering contracts even to young graduates from major Chinese universities.