DeepSeek nears $45 billion valuation as China’s Big Fund leads funding talks

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek is in advanced talks for its first major external fundraising round that could value the company at about $45 billion, with China’s largest state-backed semiconductor investor leading the discussions, according to a report by the Financial Times on Wednesday.

The proposed financing is being led by the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, commonly known as the “Big Fund,” underscoring Beijing’s determination to build national champions in AI and reduce reliance on Western technology at a time of intensifying global competition.

The valuation marks a sharp jump from reports just weeks ago that DeepSeek was exploring a much smaller funding round at around $10 billion, highlighting surging investor confidence in the company’s rapid commercial and technological ascent.

DeepSeek shot to international prominence after unveiling low-cost, high-performance large language models that challenged assumptions that only heavily funded US firms could build frontier AI systems. 

Its ability to deliver competitive reasoning and enterprise tools with significantly lower computing costs has made it one of China’s most closely watched AI ventures.

The new fundraising talks are expected to draw participation from sovereign-backed capital and strategic technology investors, with proceeds likely to be used for AI chips, cloud infrastructure and wider deployment of DeepSeek’s next-generation models.

If completed at the reported valuation, DeepSeek would rank among the world’s most valuable AI startups, signaling China’s strongest financial push yet to narrow the gap with US-based AI leaders.