As the race for global AI domination accelerates, technological challenges continue to persist in China and firms have been scrambling to create their own AI-powered chatbots in the wake of OpenAI’s 2022 ChatGPT release.
Liang has been vocal about China’s potential as an AI giant, and he has shared hopes for Chinese AI innovations.
“Innovation is undoubtedly costly, and our past tendency to adopt existing technologies was tied to China’s earlier developmental stage but today, China’s economic scale and the profits of giants like ByteDance and Tencent are globally significant,” Liang said.
“What we lack isn’t capital but confidence and the ability to organise high-calibre talent for effective innovation. We believe that with economic development, China must gradually transition from being a beneficiary to a contributor, rather than continuing to ride on the coattails of others.”
While sharing his visions for DeepSeek and Chinese AI, he has also identified “gaps” for China in the global technological war, citing “the US embargo” on high-end semiconductor microchips as being a major challenge.
“First, there’s a gap in training efficiency,” Liang said. “We estimate that China’s best models likely require twice the compute power to match top global models due to structural and training dynamics gaps.”
“Data efficiency is also half as effective, meaning we need twice the data and compute for equivalent results. Combined, that’s four times the resources. Our goal is to continuously narrow these gaps.”
“DEEPSEEK AI MASTER”
Liang has yet to make any public statement on DeepSeek’s sudden popularity, but Chinese netizens expressed awe over his achievements and praised his efforts.
“It only goes to show how you don’t need to be (some) tech bro to achieve global AI success,” said one user on the popular microblogging platform Sina Weibo. “Liang Wenfeng shows that China can take something and make it ten times better for a fraction of the cost.”
Another Weibo user with the handle Jianguo, called Liang a “DeepSeek AI master” and talked about how a former hedge fund manager had managed to use his skills and beliefs to “revolutionise” Chinese AI.
Another Weibo user described Liang’s achievements as “akin to a nuclear bomb” in the global science and technology field.
“China’s youths are gradually shining brightly, which is this country’s greatest luck.”
Another user, who shared a video listing Liang’s academic background, called him a “complete genius”.
“(He) came from a normal family, earned achievements in quantitative investments and now his research into AI also resulted in massive success.”
