DeepSeek首次考虑外部融资！全文信息量很大

DeepSeek首次考虑外部融资！全文信息量很大 DeepSeek首次考虑外部融资！全文信息量很大 Modified February 20, 2025 And in recent weeks, many powerful, deep pocketed investors, including Alibaba Group and Chinese state–affiliated funds, have expressed interest in financing the company’s next stage of growth, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks. Among the state investors that have contacted DeepSeek are China Investment Corp., the country’s sovereign wealth fund, and the National Social Security Fund, according to one of the people. 近期，据两位了解谈判情况的人士透露，包括阿里巴巴集团和中国政府关联基金在内的许多实力雄厚、资金充裕的投资者，已表示对资 助 DeepSeek 下一阶段增长感兴趣。据其中一位人士透露，已联系 DeepSeek 的国家投资者包括中国投资有限责任公司，该公司的主 权财富基金，以及国家社会保障基金。 DeepSeek, Alibaba and China Investment Corp. didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. Calls to the National Social Security Fund were not answered. DeepSeek、阿里巴巴和中国投资有限责任公司未对电子邮件中的评论请求作出回应。拨打国家社会保障基金的电话无人接听。 In addition to discussing whether they should raise money, executives at DeepSeek and its hedge fund parent, High Flyer Capital Management, are also talking about whether the startup should pivot away from a primary focus on research toward building a business that generates meaningful revenue and eventually profits, according to people with knowledge of those discussions. It is also considering using data centers in Southeast Asia to gain access to more Nvidia AI chips, according to the people. 除了讨论是否应该筹集资金外，DeepSeek 及其对冲基金母公司 High Flyer Capital Management 的高管们还在讨论，这家初创公司 是否应该从主要关注研究转向建立一家能够产生有意义收入和最终利润的业务，据了解这些讨论的人士透露。这些人还表示，该公司还 在考虑使用东南亚的数据中心来获取更多英伟达 AI 芯片。 DeepSeek founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng—who is also a co founder of High Flyer—remains cautious about raising outside capital. It’s unclear what direction he will go in. DeepSeek 创始人兼首席执行官梁文峰——同时也是 High Flyer 的联合创始人——在筹集外部资金方面仍然保持谨慎。他接下来会走 向何方还不明确。 Nerdy and Idealistic 书呆子和理想主义者 People who have worked with Liang describe him as a nerdy and idealistic technologist. He co founded High Flyer in 2015 to focus on using AI models for stock trading, then still a novel idea in China. Liang counts Jim Simons, the late founder of New York quant trading fund Renaissance Technologies, as his role model, according to a preface Liang wrote for the Chinese edition of a biography of Simons written by a Wall Street Journal reporter. 与梁共事过的人形容他是一个古怪而理想主义的科技工作者。2015 年，他与他人共同创立了 High Flyer，专注于利用 AI 模型进行股 票交易，这在当时的中国还是一个新颖的想法。根据梁为华尔街日报记者撰写的关于西蒙斯的传记中文版所写的序言，梁将已故的纽约 量化交易基金 Renaissance Technologies 的创始人吉姆·西蒙斯视为自己的榜样。 In 2023, after OpenAI spark ed the AI revolution with the release of ChatGPT, High Flyer set up DeepSeek as a separate subsidiary to work mainly on advanced research projects. Liang’s aim was to achieve artificial general intelligence, a milestone where AI achieves human level cognitive abilities. He set up DeepSeek like an academic laboratory and recruited researchers who also wanted to pursue AGI. 2023 年，在 OpenAI 发布 ChatGPT 引发 AI 革命之后，高飞者成立了 DeepSeek 作为独立子公司，主要专注于高级研究项目。梁的目 标是实现通用人工智能，这是 AI 达到人类水平认知能力的一个里程碑。他将 DeepSeek 建立成一个学术实验室，并招募了同样想要追 求 AGI 的研究人员。 DeepSeek had a leg up over other Chinese AI startups: High Flyer had stockpiled about 10,000 Nvidia A100 chips before the U.S. restricted sales of those semiconductors to China on national security grounds, according to former employees. DeepSeek 比其他中国 AI 初创公司更有优势：据前员工称，在美国以国家安全为由限制向中国销售这些半导体之前，High Flyer 已经 储备了大约 10,000 个 Nvidia A100 芯片。 The company showed no interest in raising outside money. Partners of two Chinese venture capital firms who reached out to DeepSeek in late 2023 and early 2024 about possible investment sa y it made it very clear to them that it had no intention of raising any outside capital. 该公司对筹集外部资金没有兴趣。2023 年底和 2024 年初，两家中国风险投资公司的合伙人联系 DeepSeek 探讨可能的投资，他们说 DeepSeek 向他们明确表示没有筹集任何外部资本的意图。 Meanwhile, Liang was paying close attention to AI developments in the U.S. In September, when OpenAI launched its o1 reasoning model, Liang flew to the U.S. and met with researchers he knows, including some OpenAI employees, to stay up to date, according to two people with knowledge of his U.S. trip. 与此同时，梁密切关注着美国的人工智能发展。据两位了解他美国之行的人士透露，在 9 月 OpenAI 推出其 o1 推理模型时，梁飞往美国，会见了他所认识的学者，包括一些 OpenAI 员工，以保持最新动态。 In an internal meeting with employees late last year, Liang said DeepSeek was lagging behind OpenAI. But Liang also said DeepSeek could contribute to the AI industry’s progress by reducing costs and increasing efficiency, according to a former employee who attended the meeting. 在去年年底的一次内部员工会议上，梁表示 DeepSeek 落后于 OpenAI。但据一位参加会议的前员工透露，梁也表示 DeepSeek 可以通过降低成本和提高效率来为人工智能行业的进步做出贡献。 DeepSeek’s older AI models, which were available to users through the company’s website, started to gain recognition late last year among AI researchers in the U.S. At the same time, DeepSeek was holding off on releasing a mobile chatbot app for consumers, even when many other tech companies in both the U.S. and China were rushing to do so. DeepSeek 的早期 AI 模型，通过公司网站向用户开放，去年年底开始在美国的 AI 研究人员中赢得认可。与此同时，DeepSeek 推迟了 面向消费者的移动聊天应用发布，尽管美国和中国许多其他科技公司都在匆忙推出此类应用。 In the second half of last year, for instance, when other Chinese companies’ AI apps, such as ByteDance’s Doubao, were quickly gaining popularity, Liang told employees in a meeting that the time was still not right for DeepSeek to focus on a consumer app. He said the company’s first priority should always be its research to build better foundation models more efficiently, according to two former employees who heard those comments. 去年下半年，例如，当其他中国公司的 AI 应用，如字节跳动的豆包，迅速获得人气时，梁在一次会议上告诉员工，现在还不是 DeepSeek 专注于消费者应用的时候。据两位听到这些评论的前员工说，公司的首要任务始终应该是其研究，以更有效地构建更好的基础模型。 DeepSeek Shock DeepSeek 冲击 Meanwhile, DeepSeek was gaining more attention. In late December, DeepSeek released V3, an updated large language model it claimed it had trained with just 2,048 Nvidia chips and at a cost of just $5.5 million, a fr action of what U.S. AI companies were spending on their own LLMs. 与此同时，DeepSeek 获得了更多的关注。在 12 月底，DeepSeek 发布了 V3，这是一个它声称仅用 2048 个 Nvidia 芯片和仅花费 550 万美元就训练出来的大型语言模型，这仅仅是美国 AI 公司自己花费的LLMs的一小部分。 On Jan. 20, Liang was invited to a symposium hosted by Chinese Premier Li Qiang. And a few days later, DeepSeek released a new reasoning AI model, DeepSeek R1. The model shocked Silicon Valley by offering performance comparable to OpenAI’s similar model even though R1 had been developed at a much lower cost by DeepSeek’s account. 1 月 20 日，梁被邀请参加了由中国总理主持的研讨会。几天后，DeepSeek 发布了一个新的推理 AI 模型，DeepSeek R1。尽管 DeepSeek 声称 R1 的开发成本远低于 OpenAI 的类似模型，但该模型凭借与 OpenAI 相似模型相当的性能震惊了硅谷。 DeepSeek’s first mobile app, launched a month ago, suddenly exploded in popularity and racked up 30 million daily active users in China in less than a month, the fastest growth ever in the country, according to research firm QuestMobile. DeepSeek 上个月推出的首款移动应用，突然爆火，不到一个月内在中国的日活跃用户就达到了 3000 万，这是该国历史上增长最快的记录，据研究机构 QuestMobile 表示。 But it struggled to meet demand. During the Chinese New Year holiday in the first week of this month, when most of the country ground to a halt for the annual festivities, some DeepSeek employees kept working on solving the infrastructure challenge. The company has curbed the usage of its app in an attempt to make the traffic more manageable, but it will likely need to invest more in infrastructure to better accommodate existing users’ activities. 但它在满足需求方面遇到了困难。在本月第一周的春节期间，当全国大多数地方因春节而停摆时，一些 DeepSeek 员工仍在努力解决基础设施挑战。公司试图通过限制其应用程序的使用来使流量更易于管理，但它可能需要进一步投资基础设施，以更好地容纳现有用户的活动。 The DeepSeek shock has also sparked concerns in Washington, where lawmakers have long viewed China’s AI advancements as a threat to U.S. national security. Earlier this month, they announced a plan to introduce a bipartisan bill banning DeepSeek’s app from government owned devices. DeepSeek 的冲击也引发了华盛顿的担忧，那里的立法者长期以来一直将中国的人工智能进步视为对美国国家安全的威胁。本月早些时候，他们宣布了一项计划，将引入一项两党法案，禁止 DeepSeek 的应用程序在政府拥有的设备上运行。 Meanwhile, the company’s fundraising plans are a fraught issue. Raising money from any major Chinese investor, especially a state owned one, could add more fuel to Washington’s concerns and eliminate or limit DeepSeek’s future business opportunities in the U.S. Last month, the U.S. Commerce Department added Chinese startup Zhipu AI, whose investors include multiple state backed funds, to an export blacklist, alleging that its AI research contributes to China’s military advances. 与此同时，该公司的融资计划是一个棘手的问题。从任何主要的中国投资者那里筹集资金，尤其是国有企业，可能会加剧华盛顿的担忧，并消除或限制 DeepSeek 在美国的未来商业机会。上个月，美国商务部将包括多个国有基金在内的中国初创公司智谱 AI 列入出口 黑名单，声称其人工智能研究有助于中国的军事进步。 U.S. investors and funds that raise money from American limited partners would likely face difficulties backing DeepSeek because of U.S. rules that came into effect last month restricting investments in Chinese AI companies. 美国投资者和从美国有限合伙人那里筹集资金的基金可能会因为上个月生效的美国规定，限制对中国人工智能公司的投资，而面临支持 DeepSeek 的困难。 It is unclear whether High Flyer’s hedge fund business, which has faced more competition from other Chinese quant funds in recent years, can continue to provide all of the capital DeepSeek needs. DeepSeek’s own revenue so far is insignificant. Its chatbot app is free, and the application programming interface for its R1 model charges only 14 cents for input and a little over $2 for output per 1 million tokens—which refers to the units of text that language models process. Those prices are a fraction of those for OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model, which charges $15 for input and $60 for output per 1 million tok ens. 幻方对冲基金业务近年来面临来自其他中国量化基金的更多竞争，不清楚其能否继续提供 DeepSeek 所需的全部资金。DeepSeek 至今的收入微不足道。其聊天机器人应用程序免费，其 R1 模型的 API 每输入 1 百万个 token 收费 14 美分，每输出 1 百万个 token 略超 过 2 美元——这指的是语言模型处理的文本单位。这些价格仅为 OpenAI 的 o1 推理模型的几分之一，后者每输入 1 百万个 token 收费 15 美元，每输出 1 百万个 token 收费 60 美元。 Earlier this month, Tencent’s WeChat, the ubiquitous messaging and social networking app in China, started testing a feature that allows users to access DeepSeek’s AI model. It is unclear how much this could add to DeepSeek’s revenue. 本月初，中国无处不在的即时通讯和社交网络应用微信开始测试一项功能，允许用户访问 DeepSeek 的 AI 模型。目前尚不清楚这将为 DeepSeek 带来多少收入。 Another big challenge for DeepSeek is how to secure its access to more Nvidia AI chips powerful enough for its AI development. While DeepSeek has been using Nvidia’s A100 chips, which High Flyer acquired in 2021 before the U .S. imposed export restrictions, staffers at the company say they will need to get more Nvidia chips. DeepSeek 面临的另一个重大挑战是如何确保其获取更多足够其 AI 开发使用的 Nvidia AI 芯片。虽然 DeepSeek 一直在使用 Nvidia 的 A100 芯片，这些芯片是 High Flyer 在 2021 年美国实施出口限制之前获得的，但该公司员工表示，他们还需要更多 Nvidia 芯片。 Late last year, in a team meeting, Liang talked to employees about the idea of using a data center in Malaysia to gain access to more Nvidia chips superior to H20, according to a former employee who attended the meeting. Other major Chinese AI competitors, such as ByteDance, have already made arrangements to use Nvidia chips without violating U.S. export controls by renting Nvidia powered servers at data centers outside China. 去年年底，在一次团队会议上，李强与员工们讨论了利用马来西亚数据中心获取更多优于 H20 的 Nvidia 芯片的想法，据一位参加会议 的前员工透露。其他主要的中国 AI 竞争对手，如字节跳动，已经安排在中国境外数据中心租赁搭载 Nvidia 芯片的服务器，以不违反美国的出口管制。 And in recent weeks, many powerful, deep pocketed investors, including Alibaba Group and Chinese state–affiliated funds, have expressed interest in financing the company’s next stage of growth, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks. Among the state investors that have contacted DeepSeek are China Investment Corp., the country’s sovereign wealth fund, and the National Social Security Fund, according to one of the people. 近期，据两位了解谈判情况的人士透露，包括阿里巴巴集团和中国政府关联基金在内的许多实力雄厚、资金充裕的投资者，已表示对资 助 DeepSeek 下一阶段增长感兴趣。据其中一位人士透露，已联系 DeepSeek 的国家投资者包括中国投资有限责任公司，该公司的主 权财富基金，以及国家社会保障基金。 DeepSeek, Alibaba and China Investment Corp. didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. Calls to the National Social Security Fund were not answered. DeepSeek、阿里巴巴和中国投资有限责任公司未对电子邮件中的评论请求作出回应。拨打国家社会保障基金的电话无人接听。 In addition to discussing whether they should raise money, executives at DeepSeek and its hedge fund parent, High Flyer Capital Management, are also talking about whether the startup should pivot away from a primary focus on research toward building a business that generates meaningful revenue and eventually profits, according to people with knowledge of those discussions. It is also considering using data centers in Southeast Asia to gain access to more Nvidia AI chips, according to the people. 除了讨论是否应该筹集资金外，DeepSeek 及其对冲基金母公司 High Flyer Capital Management 的高管们还在讨论，这家初创公司 是否应该从主要关注研究转向建立一家能够产生有意义收入和最终利润的业务，据了解这些讨论的人士透露。这些人还表示，该公司还 在考虑使用东南亚的数据中心来获取更多英伟达 AI 芯片。 DeepSeek founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng—who is also a co founder of High Flyer—remains cautious about raising outside capital. It’s unclear what direction he will go in. DeepSeek 创始人兼首席执行官梁文峰——同时也是 High Flyer 的联合创始人——在筹集外部资金方面仍然保持谨慎。他接下来会走 向何方还不明确。 Nerdy and Idealistic 书呆子和理想主义者 People who have worked with Liang describe him as a nerdy and idealistic technologist. He co founded High Flyer in 2015 to focus on using AI models for stock trading, then still a novel idea in China. Liang counts Jim Simons, the late founder of New York quant trading fund Renaissance Technologies, as his role model, according to a preface Liang wrote for the Chinese edition of a biography of Simons written by a Wall Street Journal reporter. 与梁共事过的人形容他是一个古怪而理想主义的科技工作者。2015 年，他与他人共同创立了 High Flyer，专注于利用 AI 模型进行股 票交易，这在当时的中国还是一个新颖的想法。根据梁为华尔街日报记者撰写的关于西蒙斯的传记中文版所写的序言，梁将已故的纽约 量化交易基金 Renaissance Technologies 的创始人吉姆·西蒙斯视为自己的榜样。 In 2023, after OpenAI spark ed the AI revolution with the release of ChatGPT, High Flyer set up DeepSeek as a separate subsidiary to work mainly on advanced research projects. Liang’s aim was to achieve artificial general intelligence, a milestone where AI achieves human level cognitive abilities. He set up DeepSeek like an academic laboratory and recruited researchers who also wanted to pursue AGI. 2023 年，在 OpenAI 发布 ChatGPT 引发 AI 革命之后，高飞者成立了 DeepSeek 作为独立子公司，主要专注于高级研究项目。梁的目 标是实现通用人工智能，这是 AI 达到人类水平认知能力的一个里程碑。他将 DeepSeek 建立成一个学术实验室，并招募了同样想要追 求 AGI 的研究人员。 DeepSeek had a leg up over other Chinese AI startups: High Flyer had stockpiled about 10,000 Nvidia A100 chips before the U.S. restricted sales of those semiconductors to China on national security grounds, according to former employees. DeepSeek 比其他中国 AI 初创公司更有优势：据前员工称，在美国以国家安全为由限制向中国销售这些半导体之前，High Flyer 已经 储备了大约 10,000 个 Nvidia A100 芯片。 The company showed no interest in raising outside money. Partners of two Chinese venture capital firms who reached out to DeepSeek in late 2023 and early 2024 about possible investment sa y it made it very clear to them that it had no intention of raising any outside capital. 该公司对筹集外部资金没有兴趣。2023 年底和 2024 年初，两家中国风险投资公司的合伙人联系 DeepSeek 探讨可能的投资，他们说 DeepSeek 向他们明确表示没有筹集任何外部资本的意图。 Meanwhile, Liang was paying close attention to AI developments in the U.S. In September, when OpenAI launched its o1 reasoning model, Liang flew to the U.S. and met with researchers he knows, including some OpenAI employees, to stay up to date, according to two people with knowledge of his U.S. trip. 与此同时，梁密切关注着美国的人工智能发展。据两位了解他美国之行的人士透露，在 9 月 OpenAI 推出其 o1 推理模型时，梁飞往美国，会见了他所认识的学者，包括一些 OpenAI 员工，以保持最新动态。 In an internal meeting with em