China’s chip fund in talks to lead DeepSeek funding: FT

[HONG KONG] China’s main chip-sector investment fund is in discussions to lead a fundraising round for DeepSeek at a valuation of about US$45 billion, the Financial Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the talks.

The China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund is seeking to lead that financing, though details of the round and its participants have not been finalised, the FT reported. The state vehicle, known also as the Big Fund, is a backer of some of the country’s largest chip players including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.

The state outfit’s potential involvement would underscore the importance Beijing’s attaching to the maiden financing for the country’s highest-profile AI startup. The Big Fund is a major driver of China’s campaign to develop alternatives to US technology such as Nvidia AI accelerators. During the launch of its latest V4 model, DeepSeek publicly touted its compatibility with AI chips made by domestic champion Huawei Technologies.

The startup is in financing talks now with some of the country’s biggest tech names. Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding are also in discussions to join DeepSeek’s first external financing round at a targeted valuation of about US$40 billion, Bloomberg News previously reported.

DeepSeek is owned by hedge fund Zhejiang High-Flyer Asset Management, whose cofounder Liang Wenfeng formed the startup in 2023. It released a breakthrough model in January 2025 that shook the AI world, achieving performance comparable to US rivals despite China’s limited access to international talent and cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The startup is expanding into agentic AI in the wake of OpenClaw’s emergence, tapping a wave of enthusiasm for software that can carry out tasks without human intervention.

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The Chinese startup posted more than a dozen job listings for agent-related roles as of March. Like most startups, it is raising capital and forging partnerships to gain access to the sort of costly computing power that data centre builders Alibaba and Tencent can provide, to underpin an expansion into new fields. BLOOMBERG