DeepSeek Raises $15 Billion Days After US Restrictions

In an irony that sums up the state of the global AI market today, barely 48 hours had passed since a US decision requiring federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek's technologies from their systems on security grounds, when media reports announced that the Chinese lab had successfully raised roughly $15 billion (close to 100 billion yuan) in one of the largest funding rounds China has ever seen. The message is clear: regulatory restrictions in one market have done nothing to dampen capital's appetite in another.

Round Details and Prospective Investors

According to Bloomberg, the list of prospective investors in the round includes marquee names in the Chinese economy, among them CATL, the global electric vehicle battery manufacturer, and Tencent Group, owner of WeChat. The presence of players from both heavy industry and consumer technology in a single round suggests that artificial intelligence is now viewed in China as strategic infrastructure rather than a standalone software sector.

This round extends an accelerating funding trajectory for the company over just a few months:

• Last June, DeepSeek raised more than $7 billion at a $50 billion valuation.
• In July, reports indicated it was seeking an additional $1.5 billion at a valuation of nearly $71 billion.
• There is talk of plans for an initial public offering in China that could take place as early as next year.

Where Are These Billions Going?

Reports indicate that the company, headquartered in the city of Hangzhou, is ramping up spending along two main tracks: the computing infrastructure required to train large models, and the development of open-weight models aimed simultaneously at the domestic market and international markets. This dual approach gives DeepSeek broad distribution advantages, because open models lower adoption costs for developers and small businesses, and build around the company an ecosystem of users that is difficult to dismantle with a single regulatory decision.

On the other hand, this expansion will escalate competition within China itself, where a number of labs are jostling over computing resources, human talent, and enterprise contracts.

A Crowded Chinese Funding Landscape

What is happening with DeepSeek is not an isolated case, but part of an investment wave sweeping China's AI sector:

• Moonshot AI, developer of the "Kimi" model: secured $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation in May.
• Manus AI: raised more than $500 million earlier this month.
• Zhipu AI (Z.ai) and MiniMax: both companies listed their shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January, and currently carry market valuations of about $29 billion and $7.2 billion respectively.

These figures mean that the global race for AI leadership is no longer a two-horse contest among major American companies, but a multipolar market drawing capital from numerous sources.

Who Is DeepSeek?

The company was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, who previously co-founded the Chinese quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer — the same fund that helped finance the early stages of DeepSeek's development. The company stepped into the global spotlight in early 2025 with the launch of an open-weight reasoning model available for free use, which opened a wide-ranging debate about the cost of training advanced models and about American companies' dominance of the field. Corporate ownership data analyzed by the WireScreen platform indicates that Liang still retains roughly 81.6% of the company's Chinese operating entity following the previous funding round.

Reading the Broader Meaning

This episode reveals a growing disconnect between the regulatory and investment tracks. US restrictions reduce DeepSeek's presence in a specific government sector, but they do not touch its ability to raise capital or expand into other markets, nor do they prevent its open models from spreading among developers worldwide. For companies and institutions in our region, the practical lesson is the need to evaluate AI providers against composite criteria that go beyond technical performance to encompass governance, data policies, and the risks of relying on a single source.

It should be noted that DeepSeek has not issued an immediate comment on these reports, which means the figures in circulation remain within the bounds of what media sources have reported pending official confirmation.

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