China's chip fund in talks to lead DeepSeek's first funding round

Serving arsenic the superior backer of China's nationalist AI money — a conveyance with 60 cardinal yuan ($8.8 billion) successful superior — the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund has emerged arsenic a imaginable pb capitalist successful the round, Reuters reported. The Financial Times archetypal reported the talks, citing the $45 cardinal valuation figure.

Proceeds from the fundraising, estimated astatine $3 cardinal to $4 billion, would spell toward gathering retired DeepSeek's computing infrastructure and boosting wage for its staff, Reuters reported. Tencent is among the different parties that person held concern discussions with the startup. None of the 3 companies — DeepSeek, Tencent, oregon the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund — provided a connection erstwhile approached for comment.

The fundraising would people a reversal for DeepSeek, which had agelong rebuffed approaches from task superior firms and large exertion companies seeking to invest. An earlier study had pegged the imaginable rise astatine at slightest $300 cardinal astatine a $10 cardinal valuation.

DeepSeek drew planetary attraction successful aboriginal 2025 aft its low-cost AI models concisely matched the show of starring U.S. systems, rattling banal markets. As of March 2026, the spread betwixt the apical U.S. exemplary and its strongest Chinese rival had narrowed to 2.7 percent points, according to Stanford University's yearly AI Index report. The fundraising reflects a broader dynamic successful the AI industry, wherever processing and maintaining precocious models demands important and increasing fiscal resources.